2015_Endeavor_Hero

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

A Conversation with mothers2mothers’ Tlalane Phafoli and Marie-Josée Kravis

by | Aug 3, 2012 | Education, Female Empowerment, Health, m2m

Did you know that in resource-poor countries, in the absence of tests and treatment, 40 percent of children are infected with HIV? Thankfully, 2012 Kravis Prize recipient mothers2mothers is working to fill this gap through its treatment clinics across sub-Saharan Africa. The exclusive video is a conversation between Marie-Josée Kravis, selection committee chair for the Kravis Prize and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and mentor mother Tlalane Phafoli. Phafoli discussed m2m’s programs and the United Nations goal to end pediatric AIDS by 2015: “Right now, I think, mothers2mothers, we are in seven countries. Over a million women are HIV-positive and there are still a lot out there that are not being reached, which really is a pity.” She also shared her own experience: “After the tests were confirmed that I am HIV-positive, all I wanted was to die. I can tell you it wasn’t easy. … Look, I’m still standing, I have a job, I’m able to look after my own child. The minute they see me, that I get up every morning, I carry my bag, I go to work. And not just in work, the clinic, which is the most important place in the community. I’m talking on behalf of the 1,500 mentor mothers who are out there doing the work.” Thanks to m2m, Phafoli and her fellow mentor mothers are able to inspire, educate and guide HIV-infected women receive proper care and treatment! A true Kravis Prize...

FAWE Rwanda: Making waves in girls’ education

by | Jul 27, 2012 | Education, FAWE, Female Empowerment

Kravis Prize winners are effecting change all around the world – and prominent policymakers are taking notice! For example, Claver Issa, acting permanent secretary of Rwanda’s Ministry of Education, commended the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) Rwanda Chapter at the organization’s seventh General Assembly earlier this month. Issa noted that the ministry is working to develop a special education policy with FAWE that targets all children with special needs. He added that FAWE Rwanda “has contributed much to the national steering committee in the promotion of girls’ education where schools competed and those who won awarded prizes with the help of the First Lady.” At the assembly, FAWE Rwanda Chairperson Rhona Nyakurama also shared the organization’s progress. The school is currently sponsoring 6,555 students in 62 schools around the country. Since the establishment of FAWE Rwanda, around 86 percent of the girls who have graduated were able to join higher institutions of learning. In addition, FAWE Rwanda has been able to mobilize girls’ education at the primary and secondary school levels, with 52 percent of girls now at the primary school level! To learn more about FAWE’s amazing work, go to our page. “FAWE Rwanda holds Seventh General Assembly” [The New Times, July 14,...

INJAZ Al-Arab and the Arab Spring

by | Jul 20, 2012 | Entrepreneurship, INJAZ Al-Arab, Soraya Salti

In light of last year’s Arab Spring and the recent presidential election in Egypt, it is clear that there are many socioeconomic issues that need to be tackled in the Middle East. Thankfully, 2012 Kravis Prize winner Soraya Salti and her organization INJAZ Al-Arab are working to ameliorate one of the underlying problems, youth unemployment in the region. INJAZ Al-Arab uses their network of Arab business leaders to inspire entrepreneurship and innovation among Arab youth. In an op-ed published in Right Side News, contributor Daniel Doron discussed how previous regimes in Egypt have discouraged entrepreneurship and commerce. Doron noted, “Growing unemployment is preventing a generation of youth from maturing with dignity. Most are too educated to consider working in manual labor, so they remain dependent on their parents.” The op-ed quoted Salti, who said in a 2009 interview: “Youth are marginalized from an opportunity to graduate into adulthood and to become independent, self-respecting human beings who are just able to do the normal things in life, like getting married and having a home.” Now that Salti and others have recognized these issues, INJAZ Al-Arab and their network of mentors are working to foster a new generation of independent, self-sufficient entrepreneurs in the Middle East! “Free Markets Can Transform the Middle East” [Right Side News, March 11,...