Mallika Boobna never set out to “get into real estate.”
She set out to build.
To build platforms, teams, relationships, and a life rooted in independence and self-belief. Real estate became the vehicle, not the destination. Dubai became the city where ambition felt limitless.
Today, Mallika is a Partner and Singapore Country Director at Marrfa, a VC-funded proptech company focused on simplifying cross-border real estate investment. But her journey didn’t begin with property, titles, or strategy decks. It began with a pattern she has followed all her life: saying yes to opportunities, caring deeply about people, and trusting the process long before outcomes were visible.
Mallika grew up in Patna, India—a city grounded in culture, community, and ambition, yet far removed from the global rooms she would later enter. When she moved to London for higher studies, the transition was not just geographical but deeply personal.
“It wasn’t only about learning business,” she reflects. “The real challenge was learning how to stay true to myself while evolving into a better version of myself.”
Within a month of arriving in London, she started a company. Not because she had everything figured out, but because she felt a deep sense of responsibility. Her father had sent her abroad without hesitation or complaint, never making finances feel like a burden. Gratitude turned into action. Comfort turned into momentum.
Confidence, however, took time. Fitting in, feeling equal, and overcoming internal doubts was a gradual process. What grounded her was a belief she repeated relentlessly: if you believe in yourself, the world will believe in you—because perception is reality.
She didn’t wait for validation. She created it internally first. Slowly, the external world followed.
Long before Dubai, Mallika was already experimenting sometimes successfully, sometimes imperfectly.
She built education startups while studying.
She worked in SaaS sales after graduating.
She ran a YouTube channel in London driven purely by her love for communication.
She explored social media alongside a full-time job.
None of it was linear. All of it was intentional.
“I’ve always been drawn to entrepreneurship without trying to be,” she says. “I’ve always said yes.”
That openness would later shape the most defining chapter of her career.
Mallika arrived in Dubai with one clear, practical goal: to pay her own rent.
After years of partial support while living in London, she wanted full independence financially and emotionally. What she didn’t expect was that on the very day she landed, she would be introduced to the founder of Marrfa through a mutual entrepreneur friend.
At the time, the company was only days old.
The vision was ambitious: to build a global property technology platform that made cross-border investment transparent, efficient, and human. For Mallika, the opportunity to build something from day zero while learning how business operates in the Middle East was irresistible.
Real estate wasn’t the plan. Building was.
“Being an agent came as part of the job,” she says. “So I took it. And everything changed from there.”
In just a year and a half, Mallika helped scale the company to over 80 employees. She bought a car. She bought two homes. She paid her own rent. She stepped fully into financial independence something her younger self had only quietly imagined.
But beyond the milestones, Dubai gave her something more powerful: permission to dream bigger.
“This city didn’t exist the way it does today 10 or 15 years ago,” she says. “People didn’t believe in it.”
And yet, Dubai built the tallest tower in the world. Homes on islands. A global city rising from the desert.
“That’s when it clicked for me,” she says. “If Dubai can do this, why can’t I?”
Real estate became more than a profession. It became a mirror reflecting what belief paired with execution can achieve.
Despite speed, scale, and success, Mallika anchors everything in one non-negotiable value: care.
She cares about the people she works with.
She cares about her clients’ money as if it were her own.
She prioritizes long-term relationships over short-term wins.
“I’ve only ever recommended projects where I would put my own money,” she says. “I’ve never sold with ill intention and I’m proud of that.”
Early on, she learned a simple truth: business is not just about what you know, but who you know—and genuine relationships can’t exist without care.
“Honesty shows,” she says. “People feel it.”
She doesn’t aim to be remembered as a great salesperson, but as a good person who happens to be good at sales.
Today, Mallika is building two things in parallel: Marrfa, the company, and her personal brand in Dubai, rooted in transparency, education, and future ventures yet to be imagined.
While Marrfa moves toward an IPO trajectory backed by strong venture capital support, Mallika’s long-term vision extends beyond exits and valuations. She wants to build a legacy.
One grounded in care.
In faith.
In honest work.
Her message to anyone watching her journey is simple:
Have faith. Keep your head down. Do the work.
You can control the input not the output.
Learn from losses, but don’t live in them.
What’s meant for you will come.
Some dreams arrive exactly as imagined.
Others arrive bigger, in rooms you never knew existed.
And that, she believes, is the most beautiful part of the journey.
Do follow her on Instagram.
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