Who Gets to Build What’s Next?

Today, we’re announcing Endeavor Catalyst Fund V: an oversubscribed $320 million fund that brings our total assets under management to more than $850 million.

This is big news! But for me, the more interesting story is how we got here. Endeavor got started back in 1997. And for the first 15 years, we didn’t invest in the companies we supported. That changed when LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined our global board and asked a simple but provocative question:

Why not?

Reid pushed us to question our assumptions, and together with fellow Endeavor board members Nick Beim and Joanna Rees, we sketched out what a rules-based co-investment fund for Endeavor might look like.

Reid also shared some advice I still think about nearly every day: “To be successful in venture capital, you only have to do two things. First, you have to be contrarian… and then you have to be right.”

We knew immediately what contrarian bet we wanted to make. At Endeavor, we believe that world-class founders and ideas come from places you might not expect. We use a single word to cover all these emerging and underserved markets: Elsewhere.

Today, nearly 15 years later, Elsewhere matters more than ever. With the AI arms race concentrating attention and capital on Silicon Valley and China, we believe the future will also be built beyond these two places. And while some of the loudest voices in our industry are insisting that you have to be in Silicon Valley to build anything of scale, we see it differently.

Silicon Valley is an incredible place, and big companies will be built there. No doubt. But the opportunity to multiply capital and impact outside of Silicon Valley is only growing. Let me be clear. California isn’t the enemy. Concentration is. I’m all for Silicon Valley as a hub for innovation, technology and progress. But there should be more than just one hub.

When Elsewhere participates in building what’s next, the whole world wins.

As our own portfolio founder Luca Ferrari from Bending Spoons put it at a recent Endeavor event: “The world is a better place if there are more hubs, more pockets of excellence, wealth, knowledge, advancement, innovation, than just California.”

Nearly 15 years ago, we made the very first Endeavor Catalyst investment in Globant in Argentina. When Globant went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014, it felt like our first contrarian bet had been proven right. And we were there to celebrate. But that was just the beginning.

Next we invested in Peak Games and Yemeksepeti in Türkiye. Rappi in Colombia. EBANX and Creditas in Brazil. Then came Guillaume Pousaz from Checkout.com, whom we originally met in Dubai; Luca Ferrari from Bending Spoons, building a company initially no one understood in Milan, Italy; and Jason Wenk from Altruist, whom we met through our office in Detroit.

In all, we have written more than 400 checks into Endeavor companies. To much of the world, these investments in founders far from Silicon Valley seemed crazy. But we believe deeply that you can build a big company from anywhere.

Back in May, I talked about how our original big dream was to help build a $1B+ company from Elsewhere at our annual meeting in London, right before Luca from Bending Spoons and Jason from Altruist came on stage. Less than six months later, Bending Spoons went public at a valuation north of $20 billion, and Vanguard acquired Altruist for $4.6 billion.

The thing that once felt like an audacious dream — a $1 billion company — now seems small compared with what these founders have gone on to build.

In fact, today there are 83 Endeavor Catalyst companies valued at $1 billion or more, far surpassing our original goal. And yet, despite all this success, outside Endeavor’s community, the idea that more of the world needs to build what’s next still remains contrarian.

That’s why with Fund V, we’re doubling down on that belief, backing amazing founders building Elsewhere like Cashea in Venezuela and Midas in Türkiye, as well as world-class founders from Elsewhere building for the global market. Preply, built by Ukrainian founders and now the world’s largest online language-learning marketplace, and Replit, one of the world’s leading AI coding platforms, led by Jordanians, are two recent examples.

I couldn’t be more excited about this next chapter. First, because of how much additional capital it will draw to Elsewhere markets. Not only is Fund V our largest fund to date and 10x the size of our first fund, but as a co-investment fund, we invest 10% of a round. That means our $320M will attract at least $3.2B in fresh capital to Endeavor Entrepreneurs.

Second, because over my 20 years at Endeavor, I’ve come to believe deeply in the compounding of human capital, a phenomenon we call The Multiplier Effect. When experienced entrepreneurs train, mentor, and invest in the next generation, success snowballs, driving greater impact.

Fund V, backed by the founders of iconic companies like Nubank, Revolut, LinkedIn, Snowflake, Checkout.com, Globant, Careem and more, is an awesome example of The Multiplier Effect in action. In total, more than 120+ Endeavor Entrepreneurs have invested. To all of you, and to the hundreds of Endeavor mentors, board members, teammates and friends who have joined us as LPs: thank you for your trust.

Our promise to you is that we’ll keep doing what we’ve done from the beginning: backing high-impact entrepreneurs across the Endeavor network, wherever they are building, and partnering with the world’s best investors to help them scale.

Nearly 15 years after that first investment in Globant, the question that has driven this work feels more relevant than ever:

Who gets to build what’s next?