The First Endeavor Entrepreneurs of 2024

This month, Endeavor selected 11 entrepreneurs leading six companies: four companies at our 43rd virtual International Selection Panel (ISP) held January 22-24, 2024, and two others at separate “come back” panels for entrepreneurs who attended a previous ISP (details below).

Each ISP is the culmination of a rigorous, multi-step selection process to identify high-impact entrepreneurs from all over the world. We seek founders with the greatest growth potential, as well as those who commit to reinvesting time and resources into their local entrepreneurial ecosystems to help build the next generation of entrepreneurs, sparking a Multiplier Effect. During the ISP, panelists interview entrepreneurs about their businesses and evaluate their potential for high-impact growth. The panelists then discuss the candidates and vote whether to select them to become Endeavor Entrepreneurs.

Panelists

Endeavor would like to thank our panelists who participated in the 43rd virtual International Selection Panel:

Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Waverley Capital (Endeavor Global Board Chair); Andreas Stavropoulos, Threshold Ventures (Endeavor Greece Board Member); Luis Arbulú, Salkantay (Endeavor Entrepreneur, Endeavor Peru Board Member); David Ortiz, Siigo Group (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Mohamad (Mo) Ballout, Kitopi (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Akram Assaf, Bayt.com; David Wells, former Netflix; Gary Swart, Polaris Partners; Mariana Donangelo, Kaszek; Matthew Tucker, Squarespace; Tarek Sadi, Akta Ventures; Terry Hanold, former Amazon.

Our New Entrepreneurs

Learn more about our new Endeavor Entrepreneurs selected at the 43rd virtual ISP below.

Birdman

Entrepreneur: David Elías Rabling
Industry: Food & Beverage
Endeavor Office: Mexico

Birdman is Mexico’s leading plant-based nutritional supplements company. The company sources its own ingredients and manufactures a variety of products including protein powders, performance-oriented supplements, and wellness products.

Founded in 2015, Birdman is on a mission to reduce the consumption of animal products and promote human health through organically and sustainably produced supplements. Today, the company has dozens of products, including protein powder, micronutrient supplements, plant-based milk, and meal replacements. Within Mexico, Birdman’s products are category leaders.

David Rabling, CEO of Birdman, was brought on as CEO of the business in January 2019. He worked as a General Manager at Grupo Flexipak before moving to the UK to get his master’s from the University of Cambridge. There, he worked in business development for a couple of companies before returning to Mexico to join Laboratoria Pisa, the largest pharmaceutical company in Latin America. He became the youngest Business Unit Manager in the company, catching the attention of Birdman’s founders who reached out and asked him to join.

Cayena

Entrepreneurs: Pedro Carvalho, Gabriel Sendacz, and Raymond Shayo
Industry: Marketplaces; Food & Beverage
Endeavor Office: Brazil

Cayena is a B2B marketplace that helps food businesses digitize recurring ingredient purchases. It connects restaurants, bars, bakeries, dark kitchens, and catering companies to its network of pre-qualified suppliers.

Founded in 2019, the Brazil-based company acts as a digital intermediary between buyers and suppliers. The company provides products from a single online platform that recommends the most efficient combination of suppliers for each order. Cayena also offers improved payment terms to buyers and sellers in its marketplace. Currently, Cayena has a catalog of ~60,000 products from 100+ pre-qualified suppliers.

Cayena was founded by three long-time friends and Insper University graduates, Pedro Carvalho, Raymond Shayo, and Gabriel Sendacz. They wanted to solve the decentralized nature of food procurement in Brazil that left small and medium-sized entrepreneurs wasting unnecessary time and money. Pedro began his career in investment banking at Merill Lynch, working on M&A and capital markets. In 2018, Pedro entered the startup world, taking a position in Growth at Looqbox, a São Paulo-based startup. Raymond also started his career in investment banking, working at JP Morgan before transitioning into private equity. Gabriel began his career in private equity at NEO Investimentos before leaving to co-found Cayena.

Codeway

Entrepreneurs: Anıl Şimşek and Tolunay Tosun
Industry: Retail & Consumer Tech
Endeavor Office: Turkey

Codeway is a mobile application development company focused on building cutting-edge apps, primarily in the consumer AI space, from concept to global market expansion.

Founded in Istanbul in 2020, Codeway is on a mission to lead the mobile AI app space by building apps that provide a top-notch user experience powered by the latest AI technologies. The company has nine mobile products live across various industries, including photo editing, productivity, and utility. Its two top-performing apps are Wonder, an AI Art Generator; and Chat & Ask AI, a user-friendly AI chatbot. Since its launch, the company’s apps have gained 150+ million users. Codeway was ranked the best workplace for millennials in Turkey in 2023 among other workplace recognitions.

Codeway was founded by close friends, Anıl Şimşek and Tolunay Tosun. In 2015, Anıl founded his first business, Doktorderki, a health tech company, followed by Mobilex, his first mobile app venture. Inspired by Mobilex, Anıl was eager to bring AI to the consumer market. He brought this idea to Tolunay, knowing he had a unique skill set because of his experience in the entrepreneurial space. Tolunay was previously part of the Entrepreneurship Foundation Turkey and was the head of business development at Hello Tomorrow, an organization focused on bringing breakthrough technology to Turkey.

Overhaul

Entrepreneurs: Barry Conlon and David Broe
Industry: Logistics
Endeavor Office: Ireland

Overhaul is a real-time visibility and supply chain management platform for freight and transportation companies providing risk management support, incident intervention, and recovery.

Founded in 2016, Overhaul’s core platform creates resilient global supply chains for its clients. Overhaul has built tracking solutions to identify, predict, prevent, recover, and insure cargo risks by aggregating real-time data into actionable analytics. The company now operates in 170+ countries and has more than 200 enterprise clients, including Dyson, Microsoft, Sony, Pfizer, and Dell. It also works with third-party logistics providers like JB Hunt who serve brands like Apple, Google, and Meta.

Overhaul’s co-founder Bary Conlon founded his first company FreightWatch, a risk management firm, after leaving the Irish military, and grew it into a global leader in supply chain security solutions. Meanwhile, David Broe, Overhaul’s COO, started his career in business banking with ICC Bank and later became a Lending Manager at the Ireland branch of the Bank of Scotland. Barry and David first met when they both worked on a transaction for Freighwatch in 2005. Barry later invited David to join FreightWatch, and together they guided the company to a successful exit. After working on various investments and projects, they officially launched Overhaul in 2016, building it from the ground up to address the realities of managing increasingly complex supply chains.

Endeavor also held selection panels this month for two companies that attended a previous ISP and were invited to come back to a second panel, following the achievement of select business milestones. This month, we proudly announce the selection of three remarkable founders as Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Throughout the rigorous ISP process, they have demonstrated exceptional potential for high-impact growth and a steadfast commitment to nurturing their local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Panelists

Endeavor would like to thank our panelists from these selection panels:

Richard Harris, Black Crow AI (Endeavor Global Advisory Board Member); Ayman Essawy, Lucky App (Endeavor Entrepreneur, Endeavor Egypt Board Member); Eric Santos, RD Station (Endeavor Entrepreneur, Endeavor Brazil Board Member); Wiktor Schmidt, Netguru (Endeavor Poland Board Member); Dare Okoudjou, Onafriq (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Tony Jamous, OysterHR (Endeavor Entrepreneur); David Wells, former Netflix.

Our New Entrepreneurs

Learn more about the three entrepreneurs below:

Hala

Entrepreneurs: Esam Alnahdi and Maher Loubieh
Industry: Fintech
Endeavor Office: Saudi Arabia

Hala is a leading Saudi fintech platform that enables small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to accept and process cashless payments simply and securely.

Founded in 2018, Hala offers its customers a range of services – from opening a bank account and acquiring a virtual IBAN to acquiring a physical point-of-sale (POS) device and a data analytics dashboard – all in one place. Registration and set-up are simple and take under 15 minutes. Since its inception, Hala has empowered more than 23 thousand merchants and it has reached 15% of Saudi’s new POS onboarding market share.

Hala’s co-founders, Esam and Maher, both have extensive experience in the industry. Esam earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Surrey and then went on to work in banking for most of his career. Maher earned his MBA from the University of Manchester and then went on to work in Investment Banking before becoming a mentor and a lecturer on FinTech at the American University of Beirut. He was also a Chairperson at the MENA FinTech Association/Lebanon. Understanding the pain points of the industry from the inside, both co-founders set out to build Hala in 2018.

Yellow

Entrepreneur: Michael Heyink
Industry: Smart City, Energy
Endeavor Office: South Africa

Yellow is an asset financing company operating across Africa offering solar home systems and smartphones payable in affordable monthly installments.

Over 1 billion people in Africa do not have access to affordable consumer finance and can’t fund the assets they need to access foundational services such as electricity or the Internet. Founded in 2018, Yellow operates across Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Madagascar and has financed solar energy systems for over 480 thousand households and provided mobile internet connectivity to more than 60 thousand individuals.

Michael, Yellow’s founder and CEO, is a South African with a background in private equity. He studied Politics, Philosophy, Economics, and Mathematics at the University of Cape Town and then spent two years at Monitor Group as a strategy consultant. After, he worked at Agis Investments and then at Metier Sustainable Capital where he focused on the renewable energy space in Africa. While working at Metier, Michael realized how solar solutions could help change the lives of millions of Africans living off the grid. In 2017, he set out to build Yellow.