WOMENA Needs You!  

/0 Comments/in /by

Hopefully you have had the chance to check out the new features of our site since we launched our new website in August! Our website now has a much more functional and visually pleasing events calendar and we want to populate it as much as possible. This is where WOMENA needs you. There are so many exciting events happening across the Middle East that it’s hard for us to keep up! We would love to hear from you if you are organising or know of an entrepreneurship event happening anywhere in the Middle East that you want to be promoted on our events calendar. Just shoot us an email to [email protected] and we will add it. Simple!

WOMENA’s Seventh Pitch Meeting – June 15th  

/0 Comments/in /by

In the spirit of the giving month of Ramadan, WOMENA hosted a special Pitch Meeting where the focus was on social impact investing in partnership with Weyakum.

AlemHealth and Bridg were the two companies presenting this month. Dinner was served as Ameera Amir, Founder of Weyakum, gave an introduction to social entrepreneurship. Sahar Wahbeh, Founder of Dumye, and Bedour Al Raqbani, Founder of Kalimati, then introduced their own companies as examples of social entrepreneurship.

We were honoured to host Her Highness Sheikha Dr. Hind Al Qassimi, women’s rights activist and Chairwoman of the BPW Business Women’s Club.

 

AlemHealth connects hospitals in developing countries to a global network of healthcare providers affordably, raising the quality of care available to patients in the least developed countries.

Bridg has developed an advanced consumer-to-merchant smartphone payment platform harnessing the power of bluetooth.

For more photos check out our Facebook page.

It was an excellent way to conclude the year ahead of Ramadan and summer. We look forward to welcoming you to our next Pitch Meeting on September 30th!

 

WOMENA Attends AngelSummit Europe  

/0 Comments/in /by

WOMENA was invited to attend AngelSummit Europe in Madrid by Startup Angels, a leading angel investment advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. The conference brought together angels from across Europe and developing angel markets, including the Middle East and South America.

Cofounder Elissa Freiha spoke on several panels: ‘Building Early Stage Investing in New Markets’; ‘Investing Beyond Your Borders’; and ‘Women Investors: Doing it For Ourselves’. As well as sitting on several panels, Elissa also moderated the final keynote with Christopher Schroeder, author of Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East, the leading book on entrepreneurship in the region.

We learned a lot at the conference and it was very interesting to learn what other angel investors are doing in different markets. There are some very exciting developments in other markets and we can see further opportunities for collaboration between different organisations and WOMENA. Definitely some takeaways for us as we resume our Pitch Meetings in a few weeks! You can learn more about the conference here, including some takeaways, and also have a look at the photos from the two days on Facebook.

And of course, thank you to the Startup Angels team for organising AngelSummit Europe! We are already looking forward to the next one! If you’re interested in attending an AngelSummit conference, their next one is in Chattanooga, Tennessee October 13th-14th.

WOMENA’s Sixth Pitch Meeting – May 23rd  

/0 Comments/in /by

On May 23rd we held our sixth Pitch Meeting at the in5 Innovation Center in Dubai. Amazing to think that it’s been six months since our first Pitch Meeting!

The evening started with Ramy Assaf, Senior Associate at our partners Middle East Venture Partners, leading the workshop. The workshop was titled “What is Due Diligence” and was very informative for the assembled WOMENA members.

FalconViz and Party Camel were the two companies to present this month.

 

FalconViz is a 3D aerial scanning and modeling system utilizing multi-rotor copters with AerialSfM, a proprietary 3D modelling software

Party Camel is an online party store, specializing in stylish, on-trend partyware

We were fortunate to have Dior providing the event goodie bags and Dish supplying the catering. All in all it was a great event and both FalconViz and Party Camel received enough interest to go through to the next stages of due diligence.

Welcome Back!  

/0 Comments/in /by

Welcome back! It’s been a while since we last posted a blog but hopefully you will have noticed the changes to our website! We are very excited to have the new website up and running. We would love to hear your thoughts about the new design and content! Email us at [email protected] to give us your feedback! The blog will become much more active as well and expect a flurry of posts in the coming weeks. 

Over the summer, WOMENA has been very busy preparing for the Fall. Entrepreneurs have been selected and our next Pitch Meeting is on September 30th. To request an invite or learn more about membership, send us an email. To see what you’re missing out on, check out the video we made about our March Pitch Meeting.