We are builders as much as we are backers. Our team provides hands-on support from idea to scale, embedding strategic capital, deep operational expertise, and trusted networks into every venture we help launch. As a cross-border catalyst, FOUNDHERS is also forging new pathways between Canada and MENA, unlocking untapped opportunities in both emerging and established markets.
Amoye Henry is a fund manager and investor who has been backing early-stage founders since 2019, with 10+ investments across four continents, multi-million dollar rounds facilitated, an exit, and multiple companies already at Series A and B.
Her global thesis was forged through experience, not observation. Over the past five years she has lived and operated across four continents. While based in the UK, she managed Africa deal flow for a £30M AUM family office; developing deep pattern recognition across emerging markets before most institutional investors were paying attention. That experience, combined with running an IFC-backed accelerator and bootcamp program for West African founders and a pan-Canadian accelerator backed by Accenture and public sector partners, gave her both the pipeline and the diligence reps to launch Fund I with conviction.
She brings institutional experience across HSBC, ABSA Bank, Mastercard, and the IFC, anchored by an MBA from Ivey Business School at Western University and executive education in Venture Capital and Private Equity at London Business School.
A three-time founder herself, Amoye built FoundHers around a simple truth she has witnessed across every market she has operated in: the gap is never in talent. It is always in access.
Layla Freig is a Certified Public Accountant and financial strategist with a career spanning audit and advisory at Deloitte, operational strategic roles at H&M and SkipTheDishes, and fractional CFO mandates across growth-stage tech companies. In 2023, Layla graduated from Columbia Business School's Venture Capital Executive program.
That breadth, from institutional audit rigour to startup operational tempo; gives her an unusually complete view of what financial health actually looks like at the early stage.
At FoundHers, Layla leads financial due diligence, fund operations, and portfolio financial oversight.
She brings the same discipline to evaluating a founder's unit economics as she does to structuring the fund's own reporting and LP relationships. She backs founders who have done the financial work, and ensures Fund I has done the same.
Anna Kabongo is an Investment Associate at FoundHers Ventures, where she supports high-potential, women-led startups through capital strategy, due diligence, and venture development. Her work is focused on closing the funding gap for diverse founders while accelerating scalable, early-stage companies across Canada and beyond.
With experience spanning North America and EMEA, Anna brings a global lens to venture investing and ecosystem building. She has worked as a finance and strategy consultant, advising startups and SMEs on fundraising, growth strategy, and market expansion. Previously, she served as an Investment Representative with Pasadena Angels, contributing to programs that deployed over $4M into early-stage technology ventures.
Anna is also actively engaged in impact-driven investment initiatives, including her involvement with DRC Impact Angels, supporting entrepreneurship and capital access in emerging markets.
A Fulbright Scholar, she holds an MBA from Willamette University. Fully bilingual in English and French, Anna leverages her cross-cultural expertise to connect founders with opportunities across the Francophone and global innovation ecosystems. She is a committed advocate for women in tech and regularly mentors founders through programs like FoundHers Labs.
Nada Shaheen is a leading voice in African and Middle Eastern venture capital, currently serving as Managing Director of GB Ventures; the corporate VC arm of GB Corp, one of the largest industrial groups in the MENA region. She is the first Egyptian woman to lead and manage a corporate VC fund in Africa, and under her leadership GB Ventures secured its first fintech unicorn investment.
Nada's investment focus spans fintech, mobility, logistics, and industrial tech across Egypt and the broader MENA region, where she deploys seed to Series A capital and integrates portfolio companies directly into enterprise-scale distribution networks. Her career spans the Central Bank of Egypt, EU innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives, and her own founding journey, she co-founded one of Egypt's first coworking chains before moving into venture. She has mentored over 1,000 startups across Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, and Nigeria, and is a member of Global Women in VC.
She brings to FoundHers Fund I what no amount of desk research can replicate: a decade of ground-level investing across the markets where the fund's global commercialization thesis plays out.
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