Endeavor Selects 24 Entrepreneurs from 12 Markets at the 91st International Selection Panel in Istanbul

Endeavor selected 24 high-impact entrepreneurs leading 16 companies from 12 markets at the 91st International Selection Panel (ISP) in Istanbul, Turkey, held October 21-23, 2019. Endeavor now supports 1,992 entrepreneurs leading 1,243 companies in 35+ markets around the world.

The ISP is the culmination of a rigorous multi-step selection process to identify high-impact entrepreneurs who demonstrate the potential to leverage Endeavor’s resources and mentorship to create large-scale wealth and jobs, and are committed to reinvesting their time and money in their local entrepreneurship ecosystems to help others take off.

Over the course of the three-day event, panelists drawn from Endeavor’s extensive network of board members, mentors, supporters, and experienced Endeavor Entrepreneurs, interview entrepreneur candidates about their businesses, evaluating them on their potential for high-impact growth, and deliberating on which candidates should be selected to become Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Panelists must vote unanimously for a candidate to become an Endeavor Entrepreneur.

“Over the years, even as Endeavor has evolved, our selection process has remained the same. The ISP is really where you can see the power of Endeavor’s global network in action, and the candid conversations and caliber of the entrepreneurs this week in Istanbul is a testament to that.” said Endeavor Co-founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg. “We’re thrilled to welcome the 24 new Endeavor Entrepreneurs to our high-impact global community.” 

Once selected, Endeavor Entrepreneurs gain access to comprehensive customized services, including introductions to local and international business mentors and volunteers from Fortune 500 consulting firms who will help them address key needs.

Endeavor Entrepreneurs have had a significant track record of impact. Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created 3 million jobs, generated $20 billion in revenue in 2018, and help build sustainable growth models in their home countries.

Endeavor would like to thank the Endeavor Turkey Board for hosting the Welcome Dinner, Endeavor Entrepreneur and Endeavor Turkey Board Member Nevzat Aydın for hosting the Networking Dinner at his home, and Endeavor Entrepreneurs Emek Kırbıyık of Dugun.com, Koray Bahar of Foriba, and Burak Hucuptan of Chef Seasons for sponsoring the ISP’s gifts for attendees.  

Upcoming ISPs will be held in Riviera Maya, Mexico (December 11-13, 2019), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (February 10-12), Brooklyn, New York (March 23-25), London, U.K. (May 11-13), Bali, Indonesia (June 30-July 2), Nairobi, Kenya (August 10-12), Lake Como, Italy (September 14-16), Palo Alto, California (October 26-28), and São Paulo, Brazil (December 9-11). For more information on these events, please contact [email protected].

Learn more about the companies and entrepreneurs selected in Istanbul below:

BRAZIL

Entrepreneur: Fabio Beal
Company: Kiper
Description: Kiper is first and last name in virtual doormen across Brazil. In a country where danger has driven many citizens to seek the safety of condominiums, delinquents have identified the weakness of these fortified high rises: the front door. Kiper provides integrated, IoT hardware and software solutions to replace traditional doormen in the foyers of thousands of buildings. Not only does this improve safety; it drives down costs for tenants and ensure smooth, reliable access protocols.

Entrepreneurs: Marcelo Scandian, Robson Privado and Daniel Scandian
Company: MadeiraMadeira
Description: MadeiraMadeira is an online marketplace that specializes in home products. From the very beginning, the company has understood that success in e-commerce means operating as a tech business rather than a traditional retail business. Through a cost-effective drop-shipping model and leveraging 25+ proprietary software solutions, MadeiraMadeira makes international household trends both financially and logistically accessible, attracting over 35K new customers each month.

EGYPT

Entrepreneur: Karim Khorshed
Company: Cequens
Description: Cequens is a leading cloud communication platform in the MEA region that provides Omni-Channel communication API’s enabling enterprises and developers to communicate with their customer base worldwide. Cequens’ proprietary Communication Platform leverages SMS, Voice, Push Notification, email, and Chat Apps APIs that is scalable, secure, reliable, and trusted by more than 500 enterprises worldwide, including HSBC, SAP, Google, Careem, Telegram, Anghami, SWVL, and ALRajhi Bank.

Entrepreneurs: Omar Gabr and Moataz Soliman
Company: Instabug
Description: Instabug is a platform for mobile developers that helps them communicate with their users, collaborate with their teams and build better quality apps. The company provides bug reporting, crash reporting, in-app chats, user surveys and more that help developers throughout the product life cycle. Instabug serves 4,000 clients across every major continent, and has been integrated in over 1.8 billion devices worldwide.

GREECE

Entrepreneur: Apostolos Atsalakis
Company: PNOĒ
Description: PNOE (pronounced “puh-NOY,” “breath” in Greek) is an end-to-end breath analysis solution for improving users’ general health, lifestyle, and athletic performance, as well as for simplifying regular screening for cardiovascular disease. PNOE leverages the science behind an established field known as cardio-metabolic analysis (CMA) – in short, CMA devices (generally face masks) glean hugely valuable health and wellness insights from the ratio of carbon dioxide to oxygen in users’ breathing. PNOE’s almost fully-automated system of algorithms and data analysts translate users’ breathing into easy-to-understand, actionable insights (e.g., dietary improvements, medical follow-ups for signs of disease) in 24 hours or less. PNOE was accepted into Y Combinator’s winter class earlier this year.

INDONESIA

Entrepreneur: Andreas Anggada
Company: PT Gumindo Bogamanis
Description: Kuaci Rebo is PT Gumindo Bogamanis’s main product, processing and selling premium-quality sunflower seeds and building mutually beneficial business partnerships with customers and suppliers. Rebo brand products have become the “market leader” for the category of sunflower seeds in the modern market. These products are found in supermarkets across Indonesia.

ITALY

Entrepreneur: Alessio Lorusso
Company: Roboze
Description: Roboze is a cutting edge 3D printer manufacturer that sells printer units to companies struggling to find 3D printers that ensure precision, customization, renewable design, resistance and durability. By providing clients with its Fused Filament Fabrication 3D printing solutions via its patented Beltless System and high thermoplastics materials, Roboze enables manufacturers to produce highly accurate and repeatedly durable parts. Applications within the functional prototypes fall across various industries such as aerospace and defense, plastics, oil and gas, consumer electronics and more. Roboze sells various types of printers, ranging from desktop to industrial sized. 

Entrepreneurs: Giuliano Messina and Alberto Mazzetti
Company: SosTariffe
Description: Italian customers face immense complexity when subscribing to service plans, and consequently lack the ability to make informed, cost-effective decisions based on their needs. SosTariffe enables customers to compare pricing for multiple service categories, including insurance, telecommunications, and utilities, enabling them to save money with the plan that best fits their usage habits.

MEXICO

Entrepreneurs: Jerónimo Gonzalez and Bruno Ramos
Company: Swap
Description: Swap makes transferring money as simple as sending and receiving a text message for its users – with or without a bank account. Swap is Mexico’s most-used digital peer-to-peer (P2P) payments platform, as well as a facilitator of mass cash disbursements for business clients.

NIGERIA

Entrepreneurs: Chijioke Dozie and Ngozi Dozie
Company: Carbon
Description: While 40 million Nigerians have bank accounts, only 1 million have an active loan from a regulated financial institution. Credit bureaus, relying on traditional sources of data, are only able to cover 11% of the population. The rest are thin credit file users, where credit bureaus have limited data due to factors including Nigeria’s poor addressing system, fragmented national identification systems and a largely informally employed population. However, 60 million Nigerians have mobile phones and are generating increasing volumes of non-traditional data, through their use of their mobile phones and their transaction history. By analyzing a consumer’s digital footprint, Carbon is able to assess credit-worthiness and provide short term, unsecured loans to any Nigerian with a smartphone and a bank account within 5 minutes, via a mobile app.

THE PHILIPPINES

Entrepreneur: Ronald Robins
Company: Mineski
Description: eSport leagues and tournaments are taking off around the world. Just last year, the League of Legends World Championship finals had over 100 million viewers tune in, more than the 2018 Super Bowl. Nowhere is the eSports industry growing faster than in Southeast Asia (SEA), at an estimated CAGR of 22%, with 340 million gamers expected by 2022. Central to its growth in SEA has been Mineski. Founded in 2008 as a chain of cybercafes, it has grown to touch every part of the eSports value chain. It operates 106 cafes, which double as offline locations to host events, has multiple globally-successful pro eSports teams, an eSports event production business, a news site as well as a media platform on Youtube and Twitch with a combined 260K subscribers.

SAUDI ARABIA

Entrepreneur: Muthanna Al Raqtan
Company: Ekuep
Description: Ekuep is a leading eCommerce site in the Middle East that sells commercial coffee and restaurant equipment to businesses and consumers. It also aims to solve equipment installation and maintenance issues in the Middle East through its mobile service application Sphere. As a venture spun out of the largest restaurant solutions supplier in Saudi Arabia, it leverages industry knowledge to offer the best products and services to its customers and has received the award as the best eCommerce site in the Middle East three years in a row.

Entrepreneurs: Naif Alsamry and Ayman Alsanad
Company: MRSOOL
Description: MRSOOL is a Saudi Arabian delivery/logistics platform that connects couriers to the masses. Designed to empower freelance drivers to tackle almost any errand, MRSOOL’s platform handles, goods, services, spare parts, correspondences, and almost any other task. MRSOOL utilizes instant bidding from couriers to guarantee the lowest market price for the consumer while back-and-forth chats allow the user, not MRSOOL, to specify exactly the task they’d like to accomplish.

SPAIN

Entrepreneur: Oscar Pierre
Company: Glovo
Description: Glovo is an on-demand courier service that purchases, picks up, and delivers products ordered through its mobile app. It aspires to be a multi-category lifestyle app with food delivery being the most popular offering. Currently, Glovo operates in over 200 cities across 26 countries in Europe, MENA, and Latin America. The team targets markets with low online penetration to position itself as the go-to delivery platform as internet adoption grows. A focus on lean and efficient operations allows the company to burn cash at a fraction of the rate of global competitors.

TURKEY

Entrepreneur: Mehmet Memecan
Company: Tarfin
Description: Tarfin Tarım AŞ sells the highest-performance agricultural inputs to its customers through widespread sales points. With its wide and reliable dealer network, developed agricultural risk scoring model and cloud-based futures sales platform, Tarfin offers farmers the best prices for agricultural input purchases.

UAE

Entrepreneurs: Ananya Narayan and Yan Gao-Narayan
Company: Hunter Foods
Description: Hunter Foods is a leading company in the innovative, alternative and “Better For You” snacks segment in the Middle East and Asia. Established in 1985, Hunter Foods produces a wide range of specialty and gourmet packaged foods under its own brands, such as hand-cooked potato chips, whole grain corn chips, vegetable and fruit chips, wholegrain rice snacks, high protein lentil chips, baked pretzel chips, quinoa chips, and superfoods, among others. Hunter Foods is also the exclusive distributor in the Middle East for leading cereal, biscuit, and nuts from the US, UK, Europe and Asia. With its long history in the UAE, Hunter Foods distributes into all major retailers and food service establishments (airline, hotel, restaurants, catering companies, etc.) in the UAE, while exporting to over 25 countries across seven continents.