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About Endeavor

Founded in 1997, Endeavor fosters economic growth in countries worldwide by selecting, mentoring, and accelerating high-impact entrepreneurs. Endeavor’s entrepreneurs lead fast-growing businesses that generate jobs in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Endeavor provides its entrepreneurs with a network of seasoned business leaders who provide key ingredients to entrepreneurial success: mentorship, networks, strategic advice, and inspiration. Over the past 17 years, Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created more than 400,000 high quality jobs, directly reaching more than two million people across the world. Endeavor has achieved tangible results, with individuals working for Endeavor companies doubling their income over baseline or previous jobs, and Endeavor companies growing revenue 2.4 times faster than comparable firms over three years.

Current Operations of Endeavor

Endeavor is dedicated to high-impact entrepreneurship. Its main operations focus on identifying and supporting the continued growth of a select group of entrepreneurs, creating jobs, and adding revenues to foster entrepreneurship in those societies. Endeavor currently works in 21 countries across the world. In recent years, Endeavor’s operations have expanded into several countries; Endeavor launched in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Greece in 2012, Miami (US), Malaysia, and Morocco in 2013, and Peru and Spain in 2014.In 2011, Endeavor launched Endeavor Catalyst, a passive co-investment pool that uses donated funds to support Endeavor Entrepreneurs’ professional funding rounds and to provide funding for Endeavor’s growth and financial sustainability. Endeavor Catalyst has raised approximately $15 million to date and has made its first nine investments.

Approach and Distinguishing Features

Endeavor is an organization of, by, and for entrepreneurs. Endeavor believes that entrepreneurship is vital to economic growth and job creation, and recognizes the reality that entrepreneurs in growth markets face obstacles that inhibit successful scaling of businesses, such as limited management expertise, lack of role models, contacts, investors, etc. To this end, Endeavor provides immense support to rising entrepreneurs and acts as a springboard to catalyze their success with business establishment and job creation. Over 80% of Endeavor’s entrepreneurs give back to their local affiliates and commit to mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Endeavor’s entrepreneurs lead fast-growing, typically for-profit businesses that generate jobs and create revenues in growth markets. Endeavor looks for businesses with the potential to scale and become world-class ventures and industry leaders. Endeavor is distinct from many other organizations in its focus on high-growth, high-impact, for-profit companies that can scale. Academic research demonstrates that high-impact entrepreneurs generate a disproportionate number of jobs over other entrepreneurs.

2015 Kravis Prize

Endeavor

Endeavor fosters economic advancement in growth markets by launching high-impact entrepreneurs.

FAST FACTS

400,000+

high-quality jobs created by Endeavor companies

2 million

people impacted directly by Endeavor companies

97%

of Endeavor companies are still in operation, compared to most entrepreneurial ventures in the same markets, which close within 42 months

Landesa founder Roy Prosterman and President Obama find common ground in Myanmar

by | Nov 30, 2012 | Community Development, Landesa, Poverty Reduction, Roy Prosterman, Sustainable Development

When President Obama made history by becoming the first U.S. president to visit Myanmar, he caught the attention of inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman. Prosterman founded Landesa to advocate for international land law and policy reform, and his latest contribution to Landesa’s Field Focus blog applauds President Obama’s remarks on the importance of land rights. Prosterman’s post noted that the president’s Nov. 19 speech at the University of Yangon drew a clear connection between the right to self-government and property rights – and the fact that the two together can help lead to prosperity. In his speech, the president said: “When ordinary people have a say in their own future, then your land can’t just be taken away from you. And that’s why reforms must ensure that the people of this nation can have that most fundamental of possessions—the right to own the title to the land on which you live and on which you work.” That notion is central to Landesa’s mission and its work, and Prosterman’s blog post asserts that securing farmers’ rights to the land they till and the crops they raise is key to fulfilling Myanmar’s agricultural promise and improving rural livelihoods: “If Myanmar does not protect the land rights of its largely rural citizenry who have labored for years in their fields with government control of their planting and marketing, and address the further issue of its large population of completely landless rural poor, it cannot build a solid foundation for sustainable development that will lift the country out of extreme poverty.” His post also quotes President Obama’s offer of assistance to Myanmar’s...

Spotlight: 2012 WISE Prize for Education awarded to Pratham’s Chavan

by | Nov 16, 2012 | Education, Poverty Reduction, Pratham

Pratham, the 2010 Kravis Prize recipient, is a renowned leader in the field of education, and frequently praised for presenting innovative, low-cost solutions for mass literacy and numeracy in the developing world. The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) recently announced Pratham CEO and co-founder, Madhav Chavan as this year’s winner of the WISE Prize for Education. According to an article in MarketWatch, the WISE award was established in 2010 to recognize “world-class” contributions to education. This prestigious accomplishment reflects Chavan’s dedication to social justice, and his application of years of scientific training to develop systems that revolutionize access to education in the world’s most impoverished areas. “Just like you need air, just like you need water, just like you need food, you need education,” he has said. The WISE announcement singles out Pratham’s work in the slums of Mumbai, noting that its students perform at a higher level than other children in their age group. Chavan and the Pratham team have long been winners to us, and the Kravis Prize is proud to congratulate them on this latest recognition. 2012 WISE Prize for Education Award to Madhav Chavan [MarketWatch, November 13,...

Roy Prosterman: The Word on China

by | Nov 9, 2012 | Community Development, Landesa, Poverty Reduction, Roy Prosterman, Sustainable Development

Inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman founded Landesa to apply his expertise in land reform, rural development and foreign aid to addressing the challenges of landlessness around the world. According to a recent article in Context China, Landesa has worked with the Chinese government since 1987, paying particular attention to state expropriation of farmland and compensation for farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture, among other organizations, has helped Landesa secure land ownership for nearly 86 million Chinese farming families. Context China contributor Wen Liu recently interviewed Prosterman about the organization’s work in China, including a discussion about what led attracted him to the country: Our work in China began in 1987, quite straightforwardly, because we saw initial publicity that China had broken up its collective farms and that agricultural production had substantially increased as a result. If this were true, we thought, it would be a striking instance of an erstwhile centrally planned economy of great size abandoning collective farming as a failure and replacing it as family farms, and we wanted to see it for ourselves. We did field work on this in 1987 (invited by the Foreign Affairs office of Sichuan province) and again, more extensively, in 1988 (invited by the Development Research Center of the State Council). The article highlights China’s sixth land rights survey, published by Landesa in 2011 and identifying the widespread problem of Chinese farming families lacking proper documentation of their land rights. Prosterman elaborated on the finding: Under the law, Chinese farm families are supposed to receive two documents confirming that they have 30 year rights to the small parcels of land that...