Endeavor selected 21 entrepreneurs leading 11 companies at the 94th International Selection Panel (ISP) held July 11-13, 2022. As a result, Endeavor now supports 2,355 entrepreneurs leading 1,460companies in 41 markets around the world (read more about the newly selected entrepreneurs below).
For the first time since February of 2020, Endeavor hosts its first post-pandemic in-person International Selection Panel in Costa Navarino, Greece, nestled among olive groves and just steps from the beach. Located in Messinia in the southwest Peloponnese, this is one of the most unspoiled and breathtaking landscapes in the Mediterranean, offering the perfect backdrop to three days of high-impact gatherings.
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.
During the ISP, panelists interviewed a small group of high-caliber entrepreneur candidates about their businesses. Then, in “deliberation rooms,” panelists evaluated the entrepreneurs’ potential for high-impact growth, discussed which candidates should be selected to become Endeavor Entrepreneurs, and voted unanimously to select the newest Endeavor Entrepreneurs.
Panelists at the ISP included: Alex Chatzieleftheriou, Blueground (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Andrés Cerisola, EMTV Holding (Endeavor Uruguay Board Member); Ayman Essawy, Lucky Financial (Endeavor Entrepreneur & Endeavor Egypt Board Member); Fırat İşbecer, Commencis (Endeavor Entrepreneur & Endeavor Turkey Board Member); Jose Jair Bonilla, Chiper (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Ken Njoroge, Cellulant (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Marco Fisbhen, Descomplica (Endeavor Entrepreneur);Mariano Gomide de Faria, VTEX (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Mohamed Azab, Grinta (Endeavor Entrepreneur & Endeavor Egypt Board Member); Nevzat Aydın, Yemeksepeti (Endeavor Entrepreneur & Endeavor Turkey Board Member); Nick Beim, Venrock (Endeavor Global Board Member); Nikos Moraitakis, Workable (Endeavor Entrepreneur & Endeavor Greece Board Member); Peter De Caluwe, Thunes (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Songe LaRon, SQUIRE Technologies (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Steven Galanis, Cameo (Endeavor Entrepreneur); Veronica Allende Serra, Innova Capital Fund (Endeavor Global Board Member).
As part of Endeavor’s network, the newly selected entrepreneurs will gain access to comprehensive, strategic, global support services, including introductions to local and international business mentors, investors, 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 more than 3.9 million jobs, generate combined revenues of over $28B, and help build sustainable growth models in their home countries.
Entrepreneurs: Indra Gunawan & Antonius Bong Vertical: Retail & Consumer Tech Market: Indonesia
Bobobox proudly originated in Bandung, Indonesia, in March 2018 with a vision to democratize quality living experiences with a great sleeping lifestyle through innovative technology, modularity, and hospitality. The company offers a range of innovative sleeping spaces for different lifestyles, including Bobobox hotels and cabins. Bobobox has created a unique next-generation hospitality brand through its sleeping “pods,” a small sleeping unit equipped with a king-size bed, and added IoT and digital technology features within the Bobobox hotel. Bobobox has installed 1.2K+ pods across 16 locations in Indonesia, establishing product-market fit, with a >80% occupancy rate for Bobobox hotel and a >90% occupancy rate for Bobocabin. Bobobox hotel grew from 1 to 16 locations in less than two years with 158K+ users, while Bobocabin grew from 1 to 4+ locations within only a few months since the product launch in February 2021.
Entrepreneurs: Ricardo Salem, Guilherme Lane, & Pedro Lane
Vertical: Fintech
Market: Brazil
Flash is an HR tech company revolutionizing the enormous and highly regulated corporate benefits market in Brazil. The Flash platform provides all the benefits an employee receives in one platform, including food, transportation, gym, insurance, and more. Flash also offers a card that allows easier accessibility and usage of benefits. The Flash card is accepted by millions of establishments through its partnership with Mastercard. Founded in 2019, the company has 300K active users. Flash has attracted $130M in funding, with its most recent $100M Series C, co-led by Battery, Whalerock, and Tencent.
Entrepreneurs: Vladimir Lupenko & Diliara Lupenko
Vertical: Healthcare
Market: Spain
Impress is a chain of orthodontic clinics that provides digitized, fast, and convenient clear aligner treatments for patients while leveraging a medical approach. Impress has provided its 50K+ customers to date with digitized clear alignment treatments and maintains an NPS of 80+. Based out of Spain and founded in 2019, the company operates across Europe and the US and has raised a $50M Series A in Apr. 2021 led by Care Capital, a leading VC in the dental space worldwide.
Entrepreneur: Dr. Maria Chatzou Dunford
Vertical: Healthcare
Market: Greece
One of the largest problems governments and large pharma companies face is that most genomic, phenotypic, and clinical data is non-usable: siloed, complex, and non-standardized. Estimates suggest that just 3% of all data is currently tagged and ready for manipulation, and only one-sixth of this (0.5%) is currently used for analysis. Lifebit’s technology creates new collective understandings from this complex distributed data on an operating system underpinned by AI and machine learning. Lifebit’s marketplace model is the first fully federated genomics platform that integrates and accommodates all best practices and full compliance models, connecting data custodians to the government/pharma demand for their data.
OnPoint is a Vietnamese eCommerce enabler that provides a one-stop solution for consumer brands to accelerate their online growth across multiple channels, including eCommerce marketplaces, social media platforms, and brand-owned websites. Founded in 2017, the company helps more than 200+ brands, including Mondelez, L’Oreal, Nestlé, P&G, Unilever, and more, set up and operate online stores, manage digital marketing campaigns and customer services, and provide warehousing and product fulfillment. With a recently closed $50M Series B led by SeaTown Holdings, a subsidiary of Temasek, OnPoint seeks to create impactful products for the SEA eCommerce ecosystem by constantly innovating and developing sustainable, seamless customer-centric solutions.
Entrepreneur: Gaston Irigoyen, Juan Fantoni, & Hernan Corral
Vertical: Fintech
Market: Argentina
In Latin America, almost 80% of all transactions are still done in cash despite the shift to digital payment methods caused by the pandemic. Fintechs and even crypto wallets are using cards to bring more and better financial services to users. Unfortunately, it takes over 12 months for a company to spin up a plastic or digital card because legacy processors were built decades ago, their pricing is inflexible, their technology is obsolete and does not support our 21st century needs. In response to this, Pomelo is building a new generation, regional and API-based platform to address this clear market need in Latin America. The company’s new infrastructure aims to allow fintechs, crypto wallets, and embedded finance players to onboard users in a compliant way, power them with a virtual account, and issue prepaid, debit and credit cards within a few weeks. In less than two years, Pomelo has raised $60M from top global funds in its mission to build the fintech infrastructure for Latin America.
Entrepreneur: Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj, & Mostafa Menessy Vertical:Fintech Market:Egypt
Paymob is Egypt’s leading and most comprehensive digital payments infrastructure. Founded in 2015, the company offers a diversified product suite of 10+ products that allow 100K+ merchants to accept, manage, pay, and grow their finances in a digital and seamless way. Its products facilitate online and offline payment options by card, mobile wallet, or in installments. The company has raised $68.5M since founding, most recently (Apr. 2022) a $50M Series B round co-led by PayPal Ventures, Kora Capital, and Clay Point. Paymob projects to grow at an 80%+ 2022-2025 CAGR to realize its mission of empowering SMEs by providing them with a payment gateway to start, grow, and manage their business.
Founded in early 2020 to transform the inefficient specialty medication enrollment and delivery process in the US, RxLightning is a technology platform that connects doctors, patients, pharmacies, and drug manufacturers to reduce the time it takes for a patient to start critical medication from multiple weeks to less than two days or even hours. The platform streamlines processes for doctors, patients, drug manufacturers, and specialty pharmacies, resulting in cost reduction and increased sales volume and revenue for specialty pharmacies and drug manufacturers, as well as faster access to life-saving medications for patients.
Entrepreneur:Fabio Carrara & Guillaume Tiret Vertical:Smart City Market:Brazil
Solfácil is a renewable energy investment platform that allows individuals to invest in solar energy. The company’s mission is to democratize access to solar energy across Brazil. It is the first verticalized lending company in this space in Brazil and the third-largest financing player for solar energy in the country, next to major banks such as BV and Santander. Beyond its financing offering, Solfácil is building a full-fledged solar energy ecosystem, including a 3rd party marketplace for solar panel integrators and proprietary IoT software for consumers. The company has onboarded 8K integrator partners and has financed 43K solar energy projects to date. It has raised a total of $135M+ in funding, most recently (May 2022) a $100M Series C led by QED Investors.
Entrepreneur: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan & Turki Bin Zarah Vertical:Fintech Market: Saudi Arabia
Tamara is the leading Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider in the MENA region. Tamara partners with merchants to be present as a payment option in-store and online when users checkout, paying via an installment solution, partially upfront, and the remaining portion every 30 days. Customers love Tamara because it enables them to buy what they love with no hidden fees or interest. Tamara operates in the Middle East’s $2T shopping payments and retail banking industry. In March 2021, the company closed a ground-breaking Series A of $110M led by Checkout.com.
Entrepreneur: David Rabie Vertical: Food and Beverage Market: Detroit/Chicago
Tovala is reinventing home cooking to save you time. By combining a smart oven with a fresh meal delivery service Tovala seeks to make meal time effortless. Launched in 2017, Tovala offers a rotating weekly menu of 20+ chef-crafted meals on its platform that typically cook from scratch in 20 minutes or less. Through an innovative combination of hardware, software, and food, it offers a wifi-connected smart-oven with a variety of cooking methods that makes preparing food as simple as scanning a barcode. With over $100M in capital raised and 10 million meals served, Tovala seeks to change the way that everyone from busy professionals to empty nesters enjoy a home-cooked meal.
