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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

Sakena Yacoobi wins the Lotus Leadership Award

by | Jun 22, 2012 | AIL, Award Ceremony, Community Development, Education, Female Empowerment, Health, Sakena Yacoobi

On June 7, Sakena Yacoobi, 2009 Kravis Prize winner and founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), was honored with the Asia Foundation’s 2012 Lotus Leadership Award. The award recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations that have made major contributions to the wellbeing of women and their communities in Asia. At the awards ceremony, the Foundation screened this never-before-seen video of Yacoobi discussing the circumstances under which she started her organization. “It was scary. If I was caught, or if one of my teachers would be caught, they would be killed because the policy of that time was … no education at all. But we were doing something against the system. Through education, you can really, completely change an entire family. … Through this program, we graduate thousands and thousands of students.” Yacoobi also discussed the impact and goals of AIL: “Today in Afghanistan, AIL has reached 9.1 million people. I am proud of that. And when you have the power of people, you don’t have to fight with gun[s]. You can communicate and through understanding, you can really bring peace to Afghanistan.” She closed with a powerful message: “I will continue this fight because this fight is not finished yet, for the women of Afghanistan.” Another example of a Kravis Prize winner perpetually fighting for social...

Land rights: The key to fertile economic growth

by | Jun 15, 2012 | Landesa, Roy Prosterman, Sustainable Development

Kravis Prize winners all strive towards raising awareness of issues that people may or may not encounter in everyday life. For example, the New York Times published an op-ed this week by Roy Prosterman, 2006 Kravis Prize winner and founder of rural developer Landesa, and land-rights specialist and Landesa senior attorney Darryl Vhugen, who discuss the importance of land rights in Myanmar. Here in the U.S. it’s easy to take these basic rights for granted, since we have a rule of law and certain institutions in place. Prosterman and Vhugen, however, point out how these seemingly deserved rights are very much lacking in some countries, such as Myanmar: “Nearly 70 percent of Myanmar’s 47 million people live in rural areas. About one-third of these are landless agricultural laborers. Most of the others, fortunate enough to have some rights to the patch of ground they farm, control their fields only tenuously. There are two main reasons for this. First, with increasing frequency, land is taken from farmers, often with little or no compensation. Large swathes of farmland have already been made available to foreign-based companies in a process that appears to be accelerating. … Second, Myanmar law requires farmers to grow what the government or the local military commander wants them to grow, and subjects farmers to production quotas. Policies like these also displace farmers and lead to food insecurity, as farm productivity suffers. This can push farmers into debt by forcing them to take out loans from money lenders or sell their land in an effort to meet an unrealistic planting directive.” The authors add that despite the growing...

Roy Prosterman: The Next Big Question for China

by | Jun 8, 2012 | Landesa, Roy Prosterman

Inaugural Kravis Prize winner Roy Prosterman founded Landesa to put to work his expertise on land reform, rural development and foreign aid and to enact change in the world including China, where more than 4 million rural Chinese lose their land due to government takings every year. Not only do these land grievances violate property rights, they also accounted for two-thirds of the 187,000 reported mass protests and riots in China in 2010! With such a large rate of incidence and a link to rebellion, it is no wonder that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the country needs to adopt land reforms. Landesa also recently conducted a field study that examined farmers’ land rights in more than 1,700 villages in 17 provinces in China, which revealed some implications of the current state of land laws. On March 6, 2012, Prosterman and Landesa attorney Zhu Keliang presented the findings of the study at a talk hosted by the National Committee on the U.S.-China Relations. The presentation covered the reasons for the loss of land and incentives for farmers to make long-term investments in land, examined the challenges in developing a more equitable approach to urbanization, rural revitalization and stability and provided recommendations on how to ensure secure land rights for hundreds of millions of small farmers and eventually turn them into middle-class consumers and market participants. Prosterman discussed the effect of the land takings on the population: “The dissatisfied farmers outnumber the satisfied ones more than two to one. And indeed, more than one out of six, 17 percent of the affected farmers who have experienced a taking report themselves...