Dubai Royal's private office partners with London AI company VerbaFlo to help modernise The Gulf's rental market
(MENAFN- MENAFNEditorial) Seed Group, a company of The Private Office of His Highness Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, has created a strategic partnership with London-based VerbaFlo, supporting real estate investors and operators across the UAE as they bring AI into leasing and resident communications to drive revenue and automate operational workflows in rentals.
The AI company gives residents an instant answer at any hour, which helps fill buildings quicker, keep tenants happier, and automates leasing, rent collection and renewals. It takes routine admin off onsite teams so they can focus on prospect conversion and resident experience. This creates stickier tenants and because every conversation is captured and analysed it can offer residential investors – including private equity firms like Blackstone, KKR and Apoll– – better visibility on the true value of their assets by understanding enquiry demand and conversion, addressable market size, renewal intent, maintenance trends, and resident sentiment, often before these show up in occupancy and revenue figures.
The partnership puts the London-based AI company within Seed G’oup’s influential network in the UAE, as the country invests heavily in AI-driven technology to support a buoyant economy.
four million in 2025 while 1.38 million tenancy contracts were registered last year, up six per cent annually and worth $34.4 billion, according to the Dubai Land Department. Estate agency Savills expects about 170,000 new homes to complete in Dubai in 2026, almost nine in ten of them apartments, while the government’s Real Estate Sector Strategy 2033 aims to double the sect’r’s contribution to the economy and lift transactions to AED 1 trillion (USD 272bn or GBP 205bn).
As more people rent and find apartments via their phones, automation brings many direct benefits. Two thirds of resident enquiries arrive outside office hours, when most buildings have nobody to answer them. Verb’Flo’s AI agents reply around the clock across phone, email, web chat and WhatsApp in more than 200 languages, qualify each lead, book the viewing and chase the follow-up, so buildings let faster. The same agents handle maintenance requests, renewals, rent reminders and payments, so tenants stay longer and arrears fall.
Because every exchange sits in one record, connected to systems like Yardi and Entrata, owners can see how each building is performing and why, through the pl’tform’s analytics layer, VerbaIQ. Faster lettings, longer tenancies, better resident experience, and lower operating costs make buildings more profitable and drive up asset value.
Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of Seed Group and The Private Office of His Highness Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, said:
“Real estate is one of the wor’d’s largest asset classes and one of the last to automate its operations. VerbaFlo has quickly become a market-leader, working with global investors. The ability to answer every enquiry, in any language, at any hour, is critical for the’UAE’s thriving, multi-cultural economy. We see a huge opportunity to integrate VerbaFlo into our business networks to help it build a sustainable business that supports our commitment to increase inward investment across the r”gion.”
Sayantan Biswas, founder and chief executive of VerbaFlo, said:
“A single tower in the Gulf can house residents of dozens of nationalities, and a message has to land correctly in whichever language it arrives. VerbaFlo already works in more than 200 languages, so this is ground we know. The UAE combines one of’the world’s most international resident populations, a rental sector that is professionalising fast and a clear national ambition to bring AI into property services. Our partnership with Seed Group brings us the relationships and local understanding that matter most, and we see the UAE as the opening chapter of a longer”Gulf story.”
VerbaFlo, founded in London in 2024, is already embedded with some of the biggest names in UK and European property. Its AI handles leasing and resident communications for major operators including Moda Living, whose towers are funded by KKR, Apache Capital; investment manager Moorfield Group which has a partnership with UK pension fund Greater Manchester Pension Fund; and Fusion Students, backed by Cain International and Israeli investor Menora Mivtachim Group; and Homes for St’dents, the UK’s largest independent student housing operator, 49 per cent ow’ed by Singapore’s Far East Orchard.
VerbaFlo’s investors include Downing, the family-owned developer, alongside proptech venture firm Pi Labs, Haatch, and Old College Capital, the venture arm of the University of Edinburgh.
His Highness Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum is a member of the Al Maktoum family, which rules Dubai. For more than 20 years his Private Office and its commercial arm, Seed Group, have taken international companies into the Middle East, among them the Indian education group upGrad, the AI cyber intelligence firm CloudSEK, the US enterprise AI developer Arcee AI and the business travel platform Tumodo, with which it holds a joint venture. The group reports more than a billion dollars of managed investments and a network of more than 3,000 decision makers across the UAE.
Seed Group will connect VerbaF’o’s technology with local property owners, developers and operators in the UAE, and its support will extend to opportunities elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Gulf is one part of a much larger shift, as institutional capital moves into rental housing worldwide. Investors put about $170 billion into US multifamily housing in 2025, according to RealPage, a record £5.3 billion into UK build to rent, according to Savills, and , according to Knight Frank, while JLL expects investment in Euro’e’s living sectors to p€ss €70 billion in 2026. VerbaFlo, which has offices in London and Delhi NCR, already works with operators in 12 countries, and sees the UAE as the start of a wider Gulf expansion.
The AI company gives residents an instant answer at any hour, which helps fill buildings quicker, keep tenants happier, and automates leasing, rent collection and renewals. It takes routine admin off onsite teams so they can focus on prospect conversion and resident experience. This creates stickier tenants and because every conversation is captured and analysed it can offer residential investors – including private equity firms like Blackstone, KKR and Apoll– – better visibility on the true value of their assets by understanding enquiry demand and conversion, addressable market size, renewal intent, maintenance trends, and resident sentiment, often before these show up in occupancy and revenue figures.
The partnership puts the London-based AI company within Seed G’oup’s influential network in the UAE, as the country invests heavily in AI-driven technology to support a buoyant economy.
four million in 2025 while 1.38 million tenancy contracts were registered last year, up six per cent annually and worth $34.4 billion, according to the Dubai Land Department. Estate agency Savills expects about 170,000 new homes to complete in Dubai in 2026, almost nine in ten of them apartments, while the government’s Real Estate Sector Strategy 2033 aims to double the sect’r’s contribution to the economy and lift transactions to AED 1 trillion (USD 272bn or GBP 205bn).
As more people rent and find apartments via their phones, automation brings many direct benefits. Two thirds of resident enquiries arrive outside office hours, when most buildings have nobody to answer them. Verb’Flo’s AI agents reply around the clock across phone, email, web chat and WhatsApp in more than 200 languages, qualify each lead, book the viewing and chase the follow-up, so buildings let faster. The same agents handle maintenance requests, renewals, rent reminders and payments, so tenants stay longer and arrears fall.
Because every exchange sits in one record, connected to systems like Yardi and Entrata, owners can see how each building is performing and why, through the pl’tform’s analytics layer, VerbaIQ. Faster lettings, longer tenancies, better resident experience, and lower operating costs make buildings more profitable and drive up asset value.
Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of Seed Group and The Private Office of His Highness Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, said:
“Real estate is one of the wor’d’s largest asset classes and one of the last to automate its operations. VerbaFlo has quickly become a market-leader, working with global investors. The ability to answer every enquiry, in any language, at any hour, is critical for the’UAE’s thriving, multi-cultural economy. We see a huge opportunity to integrate VerbaFlo into our business networks to help it build a sustainable business that supports our commitment to increase inward investment across the r”gion.”
Sayantan Biswas, founder and chief executive of VerbaFlo, said:
“A single tower in the Gulf can house residents of dozens of nationalities, and a message has to land correctly in whichever language it arrives. VerbaFlo already works in more than 200 languages, so this is ground we know. The UAE combines one of’the world’s most international resident populations, a rental sector that is professionalising fast and a clear national ambition to bring AI into property services. Our partnership with Seed Group brings us the relationships and local understanding that matter most, and we see the UAE as the opening chapter of a longer”Gulf story.”
VerbaFlo, founded in London in 2024, is already embedded with some of the biggest names in UK and European property. Its AI handles leasing and resident communications for major operators including Moda Living, whose towers are funded by KKR, Apache Capital; investment manager Moorfield Group which has a partnership with UK pension fund Greater Manchester Pension Fund; and Fusion Students, backed by Cain International and Israeli investor Menora Mivtachim Group; and Homes for St’dents, the UK’s largest independent student housing operator, 49 per cent ow’ed by Singapore’s Far East Orchard.
VerbaFlo’s investors include Downing, the family-owned developer, alongside proptech venture firm Pi Labs, Haatch, and Old College Capital, the venture arm of the University of Edinburgh.
His Highness Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum is a member of the Al Maktoum family, which rules Dubai. For more than 20 years his Private Office and its commercial arm, Seed Group, have taken international companies into the Middle East, among them the Indian education group upGrad, the AI cyber intelligence firm CloudSEK, the US enterprise AI developer Arcee AI and the business travel platform Tumodo, with which it holds a joint venture. The group reports more than a billion dollars of managed investments and a network of more than 3,000 decision makers across the UAE.
Seed Group will connect VerbaF’o’s technology with local property owners, developers and operators in the UAE, and its support will extend to opportunities elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Gulf is one part of a much larger shift, as institutional capital moves into rental housing worldwide. Investors put about $170 billion into US multifamily housing in 2025, according to RealPage, a record £5.3 billion into UK build to rent, according to Savills, and , according to Knight Frank, while JLL expects investment in Euro’e’s living sectors to p€ss €70 billion in 2026. VerbaFlo, which has offices in London and Delhi NCR, already works with operators in 12 countries, and sees the UAE as the start of a wider Gulf expansion.
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the
information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept
any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images,
videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information
contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright
issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
Comments
No comment