ADREC and Hub71 have signed a two-year agreement connecting technology startups with real estate challenges in Abu Dhabi, creating opportunities to pilot and validate new solutions within the emirate’s regulated property market.
October 02, 2026 | Palak Kataria | UAE | PropTech | 3 Min Read
Image Courtesy: Abu Dhabi Youth Business Council
Abu Dhabi is creating a more direct route for technology startups to test their ideas inside the real estate industry, connecting founders with practical challenges facing the emirate’s property market.
The Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC) and technology ecosystem Hub71 have signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at bringing startup-led technology into the property sector through pilots, solution testing and potential business opportunities.
The agreement was signed at LIVEX 2026 and will initially run for two years.
The model is relatively straightforward.
ADREC will identify challenges and priorities within Abu Dhabi’s real estate sector. Hub71 can then help connect relevant technology companies with opportunities to develop, test and validate solutions addressing those needs.
That could give selected startups something particularly valuable: access to a real-world, regulated property market in which their technology can be tested against actual industry requirements.
ADREC will also be able to refer startups from its own network to Hub71’s programmes and contribute real estate expertise during Hub71’s startup-selection process.
For Abu Dhabi’s property industry, the arrangement creates a route for regulators and market participants to gain earlier access to technologies that could potentially improve areas ranging from regulation to the way property is bought, sold and managed.
Rashed Al Omaira, Director General of ADREC, said the objective is to test practical technologies and adopt solutions that work, while improving the transparency and efficiency of Abu Dhabi’s real estate market.
Hub71 CEO Ahmad Ali Alwan said working directly with government and industry stakeholders would allow founders to test technologies against practical use cases and refine their products with a clearer route towards adoption.
That distinction is important for PropTech.
Real estate technology companies can face a gap between developing a promising product and proving that it works at scale within an established property market. Direct access to regulators and industry participants can potentially shorten that journey.
The agreement will extend beyond testing products.
ADREC and Hub71 also plan to collaborate on industry events, workshops, mentorship and knowledge-transfer programmes, bringing real estate specialists and technology founders into closer contact.
The partnership arrives as Abu Dhabi places greater emphasis on digitising and improving transparency across its real estate ecosystem.
For startups, that creates an opportunity to work on clearly defined industry problems. For the property sector, it provides a structured way to identify emerging technologies before deciding whether they warrant wider adoption.
Rather than innovation remaining separate from the property market, the agreement is designed to bring the companies developing new technology closer to the people who could eventually use it.
Sources: Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC); Hub71; LIVEX 2026; Zawya
