The Middle East’s female founders are on the rise. Why isn’t the funding following?

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s startup ecosystem has become increasingly vibrant in recent years and boasts a string of unicorns and innovative businesses.

But despite the progress that has been made, female founders remain woefully underrepresented in accessing capital.

MENA’s startup ecosystem attracted $1.7 billion in VC funding across 242 rounds in the first half of 2026, according to tech accelerator Wamda.

However, female-founded startups secured only $2.5 million or 0.14% of this funding total , compared with$1.6 billion raised by male-founded startups across 213 deals.

This funding disparity is far from a one-off.

Aggregate data compiled by Wamda shows that mixed-gender founding teams and female-founded startups accounted for roughly less than 4% of total equity transactions deployed across the GCC between 2019 to 2025.

This is despite more female entrepreneurs establishing businesses in the region.

According to a 2025 Global Entrepreneur Survey conducted by GoDaddy , the U.S.-headquartered internet domain registry company, 51% of surveyed small businesses in MENA are owned by women, with 63% of them founded in the past five years .

Abu Dhabi alone recorded 3,058 new business licenses issued to Emirati women in the first half of 2026 , highlighting the growing role of women entrepreneurs in the emirate’s economy.

It begs the question: if more women across the region are starting companies, why hasn’t their share of the funding pie grown at the same pace? According to Lucy Chow, a limited partner at U.K.-based VC firm Pact whose investment remit extends to MENA, part of the problem stems from the lack of diversity at the investor level.

“Gulf investor networks are still very male-dominated, especially at decision-making levels,” Chow, who also works as secretary general in the UAE office of the World Business Angels Investment Forum,” said Chow.

“That matters because deal flow follows networks.

I’ve been saying for years that we need more female check writers, but men have to help solve this too, by actively backing deserving female founders.” It’s a view that is shared by Basil Moftah, managing partner at Key Capital, a Dubai-based VC secondaries asset manager.

“Undoubtedly, the VC industry—both regionally and globally—is dominated by male general partners or has a majority of male GPs,” said Moftah.