Silkhaus to Cease UAE Operations Amidst Uncertainty in Regional Proptech Scene

Silkhaus, the Dubai-based proptech startup that built its name in short-term rentals, appears to be preparing to shut down its UAE holiday-home business, with operations reportedly ending on 11 November. For MENA startup watchers, it is a sobering turn. Around Arageek’s circles, we often talk about how scaling property tech in the region can look spot on from the outside, until the hard bits of operations show up all at once.

The signs have been building. A member of Silkhaus’s finance team said in a public LinkedIn post that the company had decided to cease trading. Other employees have also shared that they are leaving and searching for new roles. Separately, property owners have reportedly received notices ending their management agreements on 11 November, which lines up with booking limits seen on the company’s website, where stays in Dubai and Abu Dhabi could not be extended beyond that date.

Silkhaus has not publicly confirmed the closure in detail, and it has not responded to repeated media requests for comment. Employees approached elsewhere were said to be unable to comment, while First Class Property Management declined to discuss a reported transition plan. That said, Silkhaus’s LinkedIn page also seems to have gone offline, though it is not clear when that happened.

One property owner wrote on Reddit that an email sent on 12 October said Silkhaus would stop holiday-home operations across the UAE, pointing to the impact of regional conflict on tourism and bookings. According to that account, owners were given the option to move to First Class Property Management. A second commenter said they had received the same notice. Those posts have not been independently verified, so a pinch of salt is still needed here.

Founded in 2021 by Aahan Bhojani and Ashmin Varma, Silkhaus set out to serve travellers who fell somewhere between hotel guests and long-term tenants. The model was aimed at remote workers, relocated professionals and corporate travellers looking for furnished stays without the faff of a full-year lease. The startup handled furnishing, maintenance, guest services and listing distribution, while landlords shared in booking revenue and outsourced the daily management.

It was also not short of funding. Silkhaus raised a $7.75 million seed round in November 2022 from Nuwa Capital, Nordstar, Global Founders Capital and VentureSouq. In January 2024, it secured an undisclosed multi-million-dollar pre-Series A round from Partners for Growth, along with access to additional credit. Altogether, its equity and debt funding passed $10 million before another seven-figure growth round arrived in January 2025, led by Nuwa and Oraseya Capital to support expansion in Saudi Arabia.

At the time, the company said gross booking value had more than doubled year on year since launch, and that it had hosted guests from more than 120 countries, with about a third coming from the GCC. It sounded ambitious, and honestly, I reckon many founders in MENA would have looked at that trajectory and thought Silkhaus was in a strong lane.

On the flip side, the Saudi push now also seems to have stalled. Riyadh is no longer listed as a destination on Silkhaus’s website, and a page that still appears in search results redirects visitors to Abu Dhabi listings instead. Sabine El Najjar, who served as chief commercial officer and Saudi general manager, lists her tenure on LinkedIn as ending in August 2026, three years after joining to lead the kingdom launch. Silkhaus has not confirmed if or when it fully exited Saudi Arabia.

There has also been outside acknowledgement of the wind-down. Ibrahim Shami, co-founder of Seraya, described Silkhaus as “winding down its UAE operations” in a public post, while offering support to affected property owners and inviting former staff to get in touch about openings at his company. In moments like this, the startup ecosystem can be surprisingly small, and believe it or not, that community reflex matters a lot when teams are left in limbo.

The broader backdrop is mixed. Dubai’s tourism market has been recovering unevenly after regional conflict. Official figures show hotel occupancy reached 66% in August, up from 36% in March, but still only 89% of the level seen a year earlier. The city welcomed 869,000 international overnight visitors in August, its strongest monthly result since February. Whether those conditions were enough to push Silkhaus over the edge remains unclear.

The company’s reported retreat will inevitably bring comparisons with Sonder, the tech-driven accommodation player that collapsed last year after Marriott ended their licensing tie-up, before Sonder later filed for Chapter 7 liquidation. It is not exactly apples to apples, but the parallel is hard to ignore: using software, pricing tools and smart locks to scale hospitality sounds clever on paper, yet the real-world economics can be a bit of a headache.

For now, several questions remain unanswered. Silkhaus has not clarified what happens to existing bookings, owner payments or apartment handovers. The exact structure of any move to First Class Property Management is also unconfirmed, including how many homes it may involve. For founders and operators across MENA, this story is definately one to watch, not only because of Silkhaus itself, but because it says something bigger about how fragile venture-backed growth can become when market conditions turn.

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