When Elissa Freiha, an Emirati-Lebanese entrepreneur, relocated to Dubai in 2013, her initial plan was to open a bakery. However, conversations with her fellow female entrepreneur friends revealed a different path fraught with challenges.Her friends were grappling with the scarcity of investors, a common predicament for many female entrepreneurs in the Middle East. Recognizing an opportunity to make a difference, Freiha leveraged her alternative education and extensive network to become an angel investor, ultimately founding Womena, a female-led investment group. Womena has since facilitated over $800,000 in funding for 10 companies.Freiha’s journey is emblematic of a growing imperative to support female entrepreneurs in the Middle East. This region boasts a remarkable abundance of women-led startups, surpassing the global average at 35% compared to a mere 10% worldwide, as reported by Wamda. Nevertheless, achieving success often entails surmounting societal and cultural barriers, with many female entrepreneurs relying on the internet and technological access to overcome these obstacles and participate in the workforce.Dalia Shurrab, a young tech specialist and founder of a cooking app in Gaza, embarked on her startup journey with aspirations of experiencing a world unburdened by constraints on freedom of movement and isolation. Her involvement in an accelerator program by Gaza Sky Geeks, a tech hub in Gaza, fueled her passion for entrepreneurship and prompted her to join the organization as a social media coordinator.
Shurrab emphasizes that technology serves as the only gateway to the outside world for individuals in Gaza due to challenging living conditions. For women in Gaza, who often face limited opportunities, connecting with fellow women entrepreneurs—virtually if necessary—facilitates skills development and provides vital support for launching and expanding their startups.However, access to networks and mentors, while invaluable, is only part of the equation. Equal access to funding is imperative to unlock the full potential of women in entrepreneurship. Currently, only about one in seven investments in new startups in the Middle East is directed toward companies founded by women, according to a recent report by Arabnet and Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for SME Development.
Elissa Freiha underscores the urgency of addressing this disparity, asserting that it is not merely a matter of women receiving less funding but rather a fraction of the funding they rightfully deserve. The bias is especially pronounced when a startup has a single female founder, making it less likely to secure funding.To counter this bias, Freiha advocates for diverse selection panels of investors. Having even one woman on the investor panel can effectively counteract existing gender biases.Dana Khater, an Egyptian entrepreneur and the founder of e-commerce platform Coterique, echoes the call for diversity. Khater, who successfully launched her online fashion store at the age of 19, is now venturing into creating an on-demand beauty platform. She emphasizes that increased female representation at the VC level is essential to ensure that female entrepreneurs’ perspectives and concerns are properly understood and addressed.
Despite these challenges, women in the Middle East persist in establishing their own businesses. Iman Chaibah, the founder of Sail Publishing, a digital publishing house in the UAE, foresees a continued surge in entrepreneurship in the region. She notes that entrepreneurship, once a foreign concept, is now gaining cultural acceptance, with families becoming more supportive of it as a viable career path.Governments also play a pivotal role in cultivating an entrepreneurship culture, offering incentives such as funding incubators in Egypt and fostering a supportive startup ecosystem in the UAE that includes funds and infrastructure.Above all, the celebration of successful women entrepreneurs serves as a powerful catalyst for inspiring future generations. Witnessing female role models accomplishing their goals is instrumental in nurturing the belief that one can follow suit.
As women in the Middle East continue to lead the way in entrepreneurship, their success stories inspire other female entrepreneurs to embark on their own journeys. The industry’s growth, combined with the breaking of traditional barriers, is fostering an environment where more women are willing to take entrepreneurial risks. Freiha aptly summarizes this transformative trend, stating, “More women have broken barriers, and now more women are seeing that and are willing to take the risk.”
