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Our Ninth Pitch Meeting  

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Last week, we held our ninth Pitch Meeting at in5, which was another big success. This month’s Pitch Meeting was in partnership with TechWadi as part of their annual roadshow across the Middle East and Sharif El-Badawi gave a fantastic workshop to kick off the evening. Sharif is the Head Mentor for TechWadi as well as the Partner Lead for VCs and Startups at Google and a serial entrepreneur.

Ennota and Kanari were the two presenting companies this month, both of which gave strong pitches. 

Ennota is a simple, cloud-based financial management solution built for MENA SMEs

Kanari uses branded mobile surveys and powerful analytics to help businesses measure customer satisfaction

Thank you in5 for hosting us again and we are looking forward to returning for our Series A(ngel) Workshop on December 19th!

If you would like to view the pitches from the evening on our Vimeo channel, please contact us for the password. You can also see the photos from the event here.

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Our Eighth Pitch Meeting  

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As the oppressive summer heat begins to dissipate, WOMENA welcomed its members back for our eight Pitch Meeting on September 30th after the summer break. It was our first Pitch Meeting since June and we were eagerly anticipating the resumption of our monthly Pitch Meetings. The event was held at the excellent in5 in Dubai and we look forward to returning there in the future.

The meeting started off with WOMENA Co-Founders speaking on how to maximise WOMENA membership. It covered a lot of topics and was well received by the audience.

Following that, our two presenting companies for September – Pavilion 33 and Yaqut – presented.

Pavilion 33 is a curated marketplace for fine art from emerging art scenes, starting with the Middle East and Africa. They were part of the first class of graduating companies from Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi.

Yaqut is a gamified and ad-subsidized eBookstore based in Jordan and has become the most popular and fastest growing in key MENA markets.

We were very pleased with how the event went with over 50 people were in attendance and it was great to see so many new faces.

Our next Pitch Meetings will be on October 26th and November 23rd. Ennota, ioGrow and UserTalk will Pitch in October and Kanari and KinTrans will pitch in November. These Pitch Meetings are by invitation only; if you would like to attend one (or both!), please email us at [email protected]!

WOMENA’s Sixth Pitch Meeting – May 23rd  

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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.

Melltoo’s “Instagram Entrepreneurship – The Key to Succeeding in Style”  

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Since investing in Melltoo, we’ve continually been proud with their progress and growth, none more so than when they announced they were hosting the event “Instagram Entrepreneurship – The Key to Succeeding in Style”. This event will bring together female entrepreneurs who use Instagram as their primary sales and marketing platform and explore best methods and practices. It will be an exciting event and we hope as many of you can make it as possible.

Three local female entrepreneurs will be speaking at the event: Fatma Mohammed Obaid AlMulla; Ayesha Siddiqua; and Latifa Al Shamsi.

Fatma (@FMMbyFatmaAlMulla) has an extraordinary 101,000 followers on Instagram where recently created her own khaleeji pop-culture brand named “FMM” (the 3 initials of her name, Fatma Mohammed AlMulla). She observes social and cultural problems, stereotypes and misconceptions and addresses them via detailed illustrations and tongue and cheek Arabic captions and her business has grown across the Gulf. A Visual Communication graduate from the American University of Sharjah, Fatma has fast become one of the most promising designers in the region.

Ayesha (@ayeshasiddequa) originally hails from India but has spent most of her life in Dubai. Ayesha spent 12 years in the corporate world before starting her own label Ayesha Siddequa, a collection of a collections of Abaya’s and Women’s ready-to-wear for her customers who are chic and glamorous with an edge. Ayesha is also the Creative Director of Future Fashion, an online marketplace that brings together sustainable fashion brands from around the world.

Latifa (@bylatifalshamsi) started blogging five years ago, quickly building up a large following. Three years later she launched the clothing line Queen L with her sisters and, this month, she is launching her own line of fashion ready-to-wear and accessories.

Make sure you check out the event page and email [email protected] to get an invite. The event is at 6:00pm on 20th May at the in5 Innovation Center. If you can’t attend, then make sure you check out both the Melltoo and WOMENA Instagram pages!