thenational.ae – Elissa Freiha, an Emirati of Lebanese descent, and Chantalle Dumonceaux, a Canadian-American, are the founders of the Dubai-based women’s angel investment platform Womena. The pair met as students at the American University of Paris in 2008 and after graduation, both showed an interest in angel investing: Ms Dumonceaux, 27, joined Gust, a New York-based platform which manages group venture capital deal flow, and Ms Freiha, 26, became an active angel investor. In 2013, the women moved to the UAE together to set up their own manager-led investment platform. In total Womena has invested US$462,000 into companies in the UAE, most recently joining fund-raising rounds for comparison site Souqalmal and online insurance platform Bayzat.
Elissa Freiha (EF): When looking at the global start-up environment, Silicon Valley is the main one but it’s very saturated, and Europe tends to be very traditional. The UAE has a lot of dynamics that made it an ideal breeding ground for early stage angel investment. There’s a lot of funding here that’s not yet stimulated, and most importantly, Dubai has this insatiable desire to innovate and grow bigger, despite all of the challenges that we go through in this region.
