DFHQ Investor Series With Finanshels & Ahmad Hammoudi from COTU Ventures
DFHQ Investor Series With Finanshels & Ahmad Hammoudi from COTU Ventures
About Event
A hands-on session for pre-seed to Series A founders who want to walk into investor meetings prepared.
About This Event
Most founders don't lose deals because their idea is wrong.
They lose because their numbers tell the wrong story.
Investors form impressions in the first 10 minutes. If your burn rate is unclear, your model is patchy, or your runway math doesn't hold up under basic scrutiny — the conversation ends before it really begins.
This session fixes that.
On June 16th, Dubai Founders HQ alongside Finanshels are bringing together UAE founders and Ahmad Hammoudi from COTU Ventures for a two-hour, no-fluff deep dive into what financial readiness actually looks like for founders raising capital in 2025.
Whether you're about to open your first fundraising round or you've been through the process before, this session will sharpen how you think about, build, and present your financials to investors.
What We'll Cover
What investors actually look for in your financials It's not just clean numbers. VCs are pattern-matching for red flags and green lights. We'll walk through exactly what gets flagged — and what builds confidence.
Building an investor-ready financial model Forecasts that reflect reality. Assumptions that are defensible. A model that tells a story without you having to explain every cell.
Burn, runway, and use-of-funds storytelling How you present these three things will shape how serious investors take your ask. We'll cover how to frame them with clarity and conviction.
Common VC diligence questions — and how to handle them The questions that trip up most founders aren't the complex ones. We'll run through the most common financial due diligence questions and how to answer them without flinching.
Who This Is For
This session is built for:
Pre-seed, seed, and Series A founders based in the UAE
Founders who are 3 to 12 months away from raising their next round
Founders who have struggled to explain their numbers in investor conversations
First-time founders who want to understand how VCs actually read financials
If you're building a business and planning to raise capital, this session is directly for you.
The Format
Two hours. Small group. Highly interactive.
This is not a panel. It is not a lecture. It is a working session designed to give you practical frameworks you can apply immediately — to your own model, your own deck, your own numbers.
Expect real conversation, real questions, and honest answers.
Hosted By
Dubai Founders HQ (DFHQ) is one of the UAE's most active founder communities, bringing together early-stage and growth-stage entrepreneurs for meaningful, high-quality events and connections.
Finanshels is the UAE's most reliable accounting and finance partner for SMEs, trusted by 7,000+ businesses across the region. Finanshels works directly with startups and growth-stage companies to build investor-grade financial infrastructure — from clean books to financial models and CFO advisory.
Meet Your Speakers
Muhammed Shafeekh, CMA — Founder & CEO, Finanshels
Shafeekh founded Finanshels with a single mission: to simplify financial life for startups and SMEs through a technology-first approach. Before building Finanshels into the UAE's most trusted finance partner for SMEs, he served as CFO at Mashkor and Alzubda, where he was instrumental in scaling operations and driving financial outcomes. As a co-founder of Lulu Sweets, he bootstrapped the business to $4 million in revenue — giving him firsthand experience in P&L management and founder-led growth. FinanshelsFinanshels
He brings over 13 years of experience spanning finance, CFO roles, and the startup ecosystem across the region, and holds a degree in Business Administration alongside his CMA certification. Today, Finanshels serves 7,000+ businesses across the UAE, with Shafeekh leading the charge to build the finance infrastructure layer for the GCC's fastest-growing companies. Mbrif
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shafeeqmohd
Ahmad Hammoudi — Partner, COTU Ventures
Ahmad is a strategy consultant turned operator who began his career at Strategy &, where he spent six years advising the largest GCC-integrated telcos on customer operations, B2B analytics, and large-scale post-merger integration programs.
He later helped set up the local office for ConsenSys — the venture studio behind MetaMask — where he led the regional implementation of real estate tokenization products. He then became the first COO of Stake, owning the full process of investor onboarding, asset fractionalization, and customer funds management.
Ahmad holds a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the American University of Beirut, a Master's from Rice University, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. At COTU Ventures — the early- stage fund backing extraordinary MENA founders from day one — he brings an operator's lens to every investment conversation. COTU Ventures
Event Details
Date: June 16, 2026 Time: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM GST Location: Dubai Founders HQ, Dubai Format: In-person session | Limited seats
Why Attend
Fundraising conversations are won and lost before the term sheet.
The founders who raise faster, on better terms, are usually not the ones with the best idea in the room. They're the ones who know their numbers cold.
This workshop gives you two hours with people who sit on both sides of that conversation — the finance team that builds the models, and the investors who read them.
Come with your questions. Leave with clarity.
Location
Dubai Founders HQ Campus
Dubai - Trade Center Second - Dubai - United Arab Emirates