Endeavor

I've sat across the table from more than 3,000 founders over the past three decades. The ones who build the biggest companies almost never started with a business plan built for a billion-dollar exit. They started because something was broken in their own life and they couldn't stop thinking about it. Two friends in Poland were fed up with bad movie dubbing. Their frustration became ElevenLabs, now worth $11 billion. A founder in Venezuela couldn't get approved for credit. Instead of giving up he helped solve the problem with Cashea, an app over a third of the country now uses daily. A Portuguese-born founder lost his father to cancer after struggling to get him into a clinical trial. He wan't to ensure no one had to endure that same pain and created Biorce, a platform making clinical trials easier to access. A group of filmmakers wanted to lower the technical barrier to creating movies. That became Runway, whose tech now spans fields as varied as robotics training and drug discovery. These founders were trying to fix something personal, and that's exactly what made the products so sticky. I keep hearing the same old story about "opportunity entrepreneurs" chasing the big idea. I wrote this piece for Inc. Magazine to make the case that necessity builds the companies that last. Link in comments. #ElsewhereMarkets #BuildingElsewhere #Entrepreneurship

Everyone loves a good IPO story. We think we're learning the wrong lesson from it. SpaceX debuted on the public markets this year at a $1.77 trillion valuation, with Anthropic and OpenAI expected to follow with blockbuster offerings of their own. With it, the myth of the "opportunity entrepreneur" is back. The story goes that the biggest companies get built by founders chasing the biggest market opportunities. Our Co-Founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg makes the opposite case in Inc. Magazine: Some of the most successful founders in our network never set out to build billion-dollar companies. They set out to solve a problem that was standing right in front of them. ElevenLabs started because two friends in Poland were sick of bad movie dubbing. Cashea started because its founder couldn't get a credit card in a country with a broken credit system. Neither one looked like a billion-dollar idea on day one. Solving a real problem is what turned them into one. Founders who build from a real, personal need tend to outlast the ones chasing a plan. When the plan stops working, they still have the problem to fall back on. Agree? Read the full piece in the comments. #Elsewhere #Entrepreneurship #EndeavorNetwork #SpaceX #IPO

The Athens International Selection Panel (ISP) may be over, but we're still feeling the energy! Athens has a way of holding its history and its ambition at the same time, and that came through in every moment. Between the caliber of our panelists, the ambition of our founders, and a city that made the whole week feel a little bit magical, this is one we'll be talking about for a long time. Our new Endeavor Entrepreneurs are already setting the pace for their ecosystems. We are excited to support them as they continue to raise the bar. Thank you to our global partners for supporting us in our mission: General Atlantic Foundation, Orrick, J.P. Morgan, and Payoneer. Next stop: Montreal, Canada. See you there! 🚀 #Endeavor #Entrepreneurship #Elsewhere Endeavor Greece

Moving to another country can mean starting again financially. In this episode of FinTech in Focus, Ridwan Olalere, CEO of LemFi, explains how the company he founded is building a financial services hub for immigrants globally. From access to credit, to sending money home, the conversation explores how fintech can help bridge financial gaps for people building lives across borders. Watch the full conversation, filmed in partnership with Endeavor here: https://lseg.group/3RKIcNd #FinTechInFocus #LondonStockExchange #Endeavor #Fintech

In cross-border finance, trust is built into the infrastructure. In this episode of FinTech in Focus, Lucas Vargas, CEO of Nomad, discusses how regulation, technology and financial system connectivity all play a role in building confidence for customers. Filmed in partnership with Endeavor, the conversation explores how Nomad is helping Brazilians access international financial services and protect against volatility. Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://lseg.group/4bT6yLw #FinTechInFocus #LondonStockExchange #Endeavor #Fintech

Why is a country of 10 million people the top fundraising market, anywhere in the world, for a fund that invests across 50 markets? That was the throughline last week in Athens, where we hosted the Endeavor Catalyst Investors & Ambassadors Meeting. Panagiotis Karampinis, our Managing Director in Greece, explained why: The Greek diaspora is knowledgeable, generous, and eager to give back. Paired with a simple value proposition, this is a window into the global tech ecosystem, and a seat at the table with founders building everywhere. That reach came alive in the stories: ICEYE, whose radar satellites can see through cloud and ice (and helped evacuate an Icelandic town a week before a volcano erupted), now valued at $12B. ElevenLabs, whose voice AI now powers a country-wide partnership with the Greek government. A panel with Nick Beim, Philippe Costeletos, and Andreas Stavropoulos also dug into deep tech's coming decade and what it takes to build an "equity economy," where people are participants in each other's success. That's what Elsewhere looks like: the best companies aren't only built where everyone expects them to be, and neither is the conviction to back them. #Endeavor #Elsewhere #EndeavorCatalyst #Greece

Over the past two years at Endeavor, I've come to understand every sector has its own version of the same question: How do you survive when market conditions take a turn? I recently had the opportunity to explore this question alongside 10+ Proptech entrepreneurs at Endeavor. Their learnings building and rebuilding extend well beyond Proptech, and inspired a piece I wrote for Endeavor's editorial publication, Elsewhere. Their industry was hit especially hard during the VC winter of 2022, when rising interest rates turned many of the models that once fueled the sector's growth into liabilities overnight. After a race for survival, what emerged were lessons of what it takes to position a company for growth even in the most challenging of times. See the full story in the comments :)👇 Big thank you to our Endeavor Entrepreneurs building in the space: Giorgio Tinacci Sebastian Noguera Escallon Luca Bovone Mostafa El-Beltagy Abdel-Azim Osman Antonius Bong Indra Gunawan Jerónimo Uribe Juan Garay Ignacio Masias Pedro Vasconcellos Michael Lahyani Darius Mahtani Cheung #Proptech #EndeavorEntrepreneurs #BuildingElsewhere

Our Global Hub in Singapore is officially open, and we're celebrating it today with the people building the region's next generation of global companies. 🇸🇬 Supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and Enterprise Singapore, last night’s launch at the iconic Jewel Changi Airport truly embodied the Global Hub’s role as a gateway connecting global founders, investors and talent with Singapore’s vibrant innovation ecosystem We heard from Edgar Bronfman Jr. (Board Chair, Endeavor Global), Alvin Tan (Minister of State, Ministry of Trade & Industry and Ministry of National Development), Nadir Zafar (Managing Director of the Hub) and Caela Tanjangco (Head of Asia Endeavor Catalyst), who shared their vision for what this Hub will unlock for founders. Our Endeavor Entrepreneurs Henry Chan (Co-Founder & CEO, ShopBack) and Peter De Caluwe (Founder & CEO, Thunes) also joined a panel moderated by Beatrice A. Cord (VP, Global Partnerships) on how Singapore keeps turning out founders who build for the world. During the event, we also announced flagship programs designed to support founders at every stage of growth in Singapore, including the Unicorn Builder, Dare to Scale, Access to Market and Endeavor Next. Thank you to also our global partners Payoneer, General Atlantic and Chubb for their continued support. This is an exciting new chapter for Singapore, for Asia Pacific, and for founders building the next generation of globally impactful businesses. #Endeavor #Singapore #GlobalHub #Elsewhere #Entrepreneurship

In Venezuela, "cashear" is now a verb, the way "to Google" is. Four years ago, the word didn't exist, and neither did consumer credit in the country. Cashea just raised $100 million from global investors, led by FinSight Ventures and Spice Expeditions, with U.S. endowments, our own Endeavor Catalyst, and Latin American backers. Every dollar will be invested inside Venezuela. Between 2013 and 2020, Venezuela's GDP fell more than 80%. More than 20 million people were left with no way to finance a phone, an appliance, or a doctor's visit. Rebuilding credit meant rebuilding trust. When the economy collapsed, so did the belief that lenders and borrowers could count on each other, and Cashea built its model to earn that back one repayment at a time. Founded in 2022, they offered what no one else would: instant, zero-interest installments, online and in stores. Today it has 10 million accounts, more than half of the country's adult population, across 40,000 stores and 100M+ transactions. We selected the Cashea founders to become Endeavor Entrepreneurs in 2025, a company rebuilding an economy's financial infrastructure from zero, in a place much of the world had written off. Today the Endeavor team is in Times Square, watching Cashea light up the screens. Congratulations to Arnoldo J. Gabaldón, Nicolás Curat, Pedro Julio Vallenilla Sosa, Ramón Lange Fernández, and every person building the financial fabric of how Venezuela buys and sells. #Endeavor #Elsewhere #Fintech #Venezuela Endeavor Argentina