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Meet Hotdesk: A Homegrown UAE Remote Workspace Platform

Co-founded by Mohamed Khaled, Hotdesk has already disrupted the tech industry, and is helping to support flexible and remote co-working worldwide.

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meet hotdesk a homegrown uae remote workspace platform

Although the UAE has become a favored location for tech startups in recent years, Hotdesk, founded by Mohamed Khaled, stands out as one of the most compelling success stories. Despite maintaining a technical and operational base in Egypt, Hotdesk has been headquartered in the UAE since its inception in 2020, making it a genuine homegrown platform.

Hotdesk has a simple USP: The app provides instant access to remote workspaces, opening the doors to over 148+ establishments in over 800 cities worldwide. In the same way Airbnb disrupted the hospitality industry, Hotdesk makes it simple to book a desk, meeting room, or whole office within seconds.

Cofounder and CEO Mohamed Khaled has over seven years of experience working in the UAE and beyond. In addition to having ambitious expansion plans, he has already assembled a team of 50 top-flight professionals with resumes featuring the likes of Google, Swvl, and WeWork.

hotdesk ceo mohamad khaled

“Prior to entering the startup world, I spent more than six years as a Senior Associate working for one of the Big Four [including] PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG, accounting for nearly 40% of the industry’s $150 (Dh550.89) billion global market. I spent most of my time traveling and working from various locations across the region, often in silos; as a result, I was limited to the options of where to work from when it wasn’t at a client’s office. Towards the end of my time at the company, I began to rethink the ways of co-working, realizing that more flexible working options were needed for workforces of the future to adapt and thrive, and that was the germinal idea behind Hotdesk,” says Mohamed Khaled, co-founder and CEO of Hotdesk.

Also Read: Advanced Tech Adoption & Innovation Are UAE’s Top Priority

According to Khaled, Hotdesk is focused on supporting a hybrid work model known as “work 3.0”. Since COVID-19, many consultants, freelancers, and creatives now operate from a blend of different spaces, which means that traditional co-working venues, with their high fees and long contracts, aren’t always a good fit. Hotdesk overcomes this issue by allowing users to search for and book spaces at hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly terms without long contracts or tricky terms and conditions.

So how does Hotdesk benefit from offering this service to its users?

“Hotdesk matches supply and demand in the market, and the end-user always gets the best prices from the co-working hosts, enjoying us as a free service. We charge a market-based fee that varies slightly from market to market, and that fee is then collected from the co-working hosts’ revenue. Some might compare the model with Uber, Careem, or Airbnb, although we charge a lower fee and help our hosts sell workspaces, which otherwise would be vacant,” says Mohamed Khaled.

After a year of explosive growth, which saw Hotdesk grow from 15 bookings in its first month to over 10,000+ per month today, the company will next focus on expanding into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, before setting its sights on the lucrative European market.

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Checkout.com Brings Visa Direct Push-To-Card To The UAE

The payment company is the first acquirer in the UAE to launch Visa Direct’s solution, enabling safe, instant money transfers.

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checkout.com brings visa direct push-to-card to the uae

Checkout.com has taken the UAE a step closer to its goal of a fully digital economy by becoming the first acquirer in the country to offer Visa Direct’s Push-to-Card solution. The new service will streamline money transfers for both businesses and consumers, enabling near-instant transactions across local and international markets.

Visa Direct connects over 190 markets and supports over 8.5 billion endpoints, including cards, bank accounts, and digital wallets. Push-to-Card transactions enhance efficiency for business users and consumers by allowing money to be sent quickly and easily to eligible Visa cards while leveraging the company’s secure network for reliability.

checkout and visa uae partnership

“Visa Direct is transforming the way money moves globally, and we are excited to see Checkout.com leverage this technology to meet the evolving demands of businesses and individuals alike by offering them a faster, more convenient, and secure way to send and receive funds,” said Shahebaz Khan, Senior Vice President and Head of Commercial and Money Movement Solutions, CEMEA.

The UAE has been at the forefront of digital payment adoption, driven by a national push toward a cashless economy. Remo Giovanni Abbondandolo, General Manager for MENA at Checkout.com, emphasized this shift: “By providing seamless, secure, and real-time payout capabilities, we’re empowering merchants with the agility to thrive in this fast-evolving landscape, while effectively meeting the growing consumer demand for speed and convenience. The Push-to-Card solution not only reinforces our commitment to powering payment performance but also showcases our agility in bringing yet another innovation to the UAE market.”

Also Read: Qareeb Partners With Pantheon For GCC Bitcoin Mining Expansion

Checkout.com’s latest MENA eCommerce data highlights the region’s increasing engagement with financial technologies, with around 80% of consumers participating in activities beyond basic online payments, such as money transfers and personal wealth management. The growing demand for real-time financial transactions has made fast, seamless payment solutions a priority.

To meet this demand, Account Funding Transactions (AFTs) have gained traction in the UAE. By integrating AFTs with Visa’s Push-to-Card services, Checkout.com is helping merchants offer secure, real-time account top-ups. Currently processing over one million AFTs per month with Visa, Checkout.com is now playing a leading role in modernizing financial transactions in the region.

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