• Saudi Arabia-based peer-to-peer rental platform Gathern, has closed its pre-Series B round, led by Shurafa Real Estate Development with the participation of Al Majdia Residence and Al Ajlan Riviera, Al Safa Real Estate Development, and STV. The amount raised was not disclosed. 
• Established in 2017 by Latifah Altamimi, Gathern offers short-term rental properties for visitors and tourists in Saudi Arabia. 
• The new investment round will enable Gathern to attract further talent, continue its geographic expansion, and add more offerings to its platform.
• This round comes after Gathern closed its previous investment round of $6 million in May 2021.

Press release:

Gathern, the fastest growing P2P rental platform in Saudi Arabia, announced the closing of the (Pre-Series B) round from strategic real estate developers and STV. The round was led by Shurafa Real Estate Development and the participation of Al Majdia Residence and Al Ajlan Riviera, Al Safa Real Estate Development, and STV.

This round comes after Gathern closed its previous investment round last May, an investment round worth $6 million (SAR22 million).

Gathern enables visitors and tourists to rent housing provided by individuals such as apartments, houses, chalets, farms, huts, camps and other holiday stays by daily, weekly and monthly rental. The platform “Gathern” has witnessed a growth in the registrations of private housing units around the Kingdom, by more than 10 times compared to the previous year, and the occupancy rates on its units reached 95% in seasons including, the Riyadh season, the Al-Ula season, summer season and other seasons. Today, Gathern is available in more than 180 cities around the Kingdom and is considered the largest platform covering the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the largest player in the hospitality sector, with more than 25 thousand units.

Gathern will also continue to grow by attracting top talent capable of developing its innovative solutions, and continuing its geographic expansion, as the company works to expand its offering to include broader services that deal with every part of its users' journey. Additionally, the company seeks to enhance the added value provided, and accelerate the transformation into an integrated platform. These integrations with parallel services will ease both the users' and hosts’ journey, and raise the efficiency of the services provided.

Latifah Altamimi, founder and CEO of Gathern, said: "We are happy to have the most prominent real estate development companies in the Kingdom join us on our journey as strategic partners, with whom we will work to raise awareness of the culture of shared housing, which has helped many countries increase the offerings and the diversity of tourist accommodation facilities. Thus, enhanced the discovery and experience of cities closely, which contributed to the increase in visitor spending to 2.1 and the increase in the length of stay to 2.1. Therefore, we will work to enable the people in Saudi Arabia, to rent out their housing across regions for visitors and tourists and obtain an excellent additional monthly income.”

Also, Mr. Mohammed Al-Ajlan, CEO of Mohammed & Musaab Abdullah Al-Ajlan Investment Co. has clarified: “We are pleased to announce our partnership with Gathern, the first licensed shared accommodation marketplace since we realize the importance of digitalization, accessibility and prop-tech solutions in providing accommodation services. We look forward to developing new horizons towards optimized short-term accommodation solutions, as we strive to create more opportunities for a unique customer experience.”