Womena

Founder and CEO Elissa Freiha leads investment decisions out of the Dubai headquarters. She is supported by a selection committee that draws on mentors from her professional networks, including the Young Presidents Organization Dubai chapter and the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy board, where she serves as a founding member. Co-founder Chantalle Dumonceaux, who initially shaped the investment thesis, now operates as a venture partner at Accelerator Ventures while maintaining an affiliation with Womena.

Deal flow enters through a dual channel: a regionally televised pitch competition produced by the firm's media arm, Womedia, and the open-application process for the Womentum accelerator. The pitch series syndicates across Middle Eastern broadcast and digital platforms, generating roughly a thousand applications per cycle from which 8–12 startups are selected. Strategic partner Hub71 in Abu Dhabi refers additional startups from its own ecosystem for accelerator consideration, creating a recurring pipeline that combines public inbound with institutional referral.

Womena does not publicly maintain a sector-exclusion list, but its investment activity has concentrated on enterprise software, fintech, digital health, and AI-enabled platforms. The firm has not made notable investments in hard infrastructure, heavy industry, deep-tech hardware, or extractive industries — sectors requiring capital intensity well beyond its seed-check capacity and post-investment media model.

Elissa Freiha holds a founding board seat at the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, placing her inside the emirate's policy-setting body for tech-sector regulation and government procurement. Hub71 functions as a strategic downstream partner: Womena accelerator graduates receive priority access to Hub71's subsidized office space, health insurance, and residence visa programs in Abu Dhabi. These relationships supply Womena's portfolio companies with a government-backed soft-landing in the UAE without diluting the firm's own equity position.