DECEMBER 14, 2020 – DUBAI: Womena graduated Cycle 3 of its Womentum Accelerator, a cohort of five startups focused on building communities and driving change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
After three months of acceleration in the first virtual cycle, these diverse Womentum Alumni are ready to scale their tech businesses in the region as they shatter stereotypes, change narratives and work toward making health and education more accessible.
“Resilience is what defines our cohort this year. That resilience was proven by the fact that they not only survived this trying and turbulent year but they thrived,” says Elissa Freiha, founder of Womena.
For this year’s cycle, Womentum by Womena and Standard Chartered’s Women in Tech offered startups a program geared toward empowering founders to confront the challenges of uncertain times, with a focus on navigating the changes brought about by COVID-19.
Standard Chartered UAE joined Womena as a strategic partner for the second year in a row, providing startups with dedicated mentorship and access to their broad network. They also awarded the three top-performing startups a total of $30,000 in equity-free prize money at the end of the program.
In first place winning $15,000, Explore Agora (Egypt) is an EdTech startup connecting education to the real world through gamified learning experiences. Second place at $10,000 went to Finyal Media (UAE), a podcast network connecting Arab youth to their culture, heritage and stories in a contemporary on-demand format. The third prize winner of $5,000 was Shadana Yoga (Palestine), a platform offering online courses and stress-relief tools and wellbeing using yoga, Ayurveda and other forms of holistic healing in Arabic.
“We are pleased to see this year’s cohort graduate and join the growing community of successful startups in the region,” says Rola Abu Manneh, chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank UAE.
“Solving the gender imbalance in tech needs support from all stakeholders — governments, the education system and employers — especially at such an unprecedented time. At Standard Chartered, we believe in empowering women to do just that. The Women in Tech program is a promising step in the right direction, capturing the essence of the bank’s sustainability strategy of Futuremakers, enabling the next generation to learn, earn and grow,” Abu Manneh adds.
The Womentum curriculum was adapted this year to create a virtual program empowering Cycle 3 founders with relevant topics such as pivoting, cash flow management, raising capital and leadership in times of crisis. There was even more integration of emotional intelligence (EQ) sessions to help founders confront the challenges of the times.
The accelerator leveraged Womena’s media platform to tell the stories of the founders and their businesses to a global audience, giving them exposure and access to an early customer base in regional markets. As always, the founders gained access to Womena’s broad network of mentors, investors and partners.
Supported by Event Sponsor Google for Startups, this year’s Demo Day was an exclusive virtual event for investors, mentors and media, showcasing the startups to the regional ecosystem.
“There’s a plethora of stats that show diverse founding teams bring better financial results, and diversity breeds innovation, which is critical to success in business,” says Mariama Boumanjal, startup partner manager at Google for Startups. “At Google for Startups, our mission is to level the playing field for underrepresented startup founders and communities to succeed, connecting them with the best of Google — its people, products and best practices.”
“We are proud to once again be a sponsor for Womentum, supporting women entrepreneurs in the MENA region to grow and succeed,” Boumanjal adds.
Since inception three years ago, Womentum has been powered by the invaluable support of our dedicated partners at Boston Consulting Group, who provided teams of consultants dedicated to each startups’ needs, and Latham & Watkins, who offered one-on-one legal mentorship to the founders throughout the cycle.
What makes this cycle unique is not only that it comes at a critical and historic moment, more so, it is because all five startups “have invested in building amazing communities that are invested in their success from a deep, intrinsic level,” says Frieha.
“No one is an island, companies can’t operate with one person alone, this is the message for our time: we are stronger together.”