Boston, Massachusetts – September 12, 2016 – Endeavor selected 34 high-impact entrepreneurs representing 18 companies and 12 countries at its 66th International Selection Panel (ISP). In total, Endeavor now supports 1,336 entrepreneurs leading 839 companies in 25 growth markets around the world. The most recent Endeavor Entrepreneurs were chosen at a panel held from September 7-9 in Boston, Massachusetts. Panelists at the event included top global business leaders and investors who were drawn from Endeavor’s extensive network of mentors and supporters.
The ISP is the culmination of a rigorous multi-step selection process to identify innovative and driven entrepreneurs who are committed to advancing an ecosystem of entrepreneurship. Endeavor would like to thank Global partners EY and Barclays for sponsoring, as well at MIT Sloan School of Management for hosting candidate interview day.
At the event, panelists from around the world interviewed entrepreneur candidates about their businesses, evaluating them on their potential for high-impact growth, and then deliberated on which candidates should be selected to become Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Once selected, Endeavor Entrepreneurs gain access to comprehensive customized services, including introductions to local and international business mentors and volunteers from Fortune 500 consulting firms who will help them address key needs.
Endeavor Entrepreneurs have had a significant track record of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, generating billions of dollars in revenues, and building sustainable growth models in their home countries.
“The Boston ISP — gathering our network together at events at MIT Sloan and Harvard — was a testament both to the impact Endeavor has made and to the exciting entrepreneurial potential still to be uncovered across the world,” said Endeavor Co-Founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg. “We’re so pleased to welcome a new group of passionate, high-impact innovators to Endeavor.”
Endeavor will host its remaining ISPs in 2016 in Medellin, Colombia (October 26–28) and Palo Alto, California (December 7–9).
Thanks also to Taza Chocolate, Q’s Nuts, and Essentia Water for generously providing snacks.
Brief descriptions of the selected entrepreneurs and companies follow.
BRAZIL
Entrepreneurs: Danilo Halla, Igor Santiago & Ronaldo Silva
Company: I.Systems
Description: For several decades there has been little to no innovation in the field of industrial processing allowing variability to lead to massive amounts of wasted resources. I.Systems creates software that controls industrial processes to reduce variation and ensure they are running at the optimal efficiency level. Leaf, the company’s main software, integrates into a factory’s existing system by generating thousands of rules to control processes and reduce costs for a variety of businesses, including breweries and mining businesses. I.Systems currently targets the underserved industrial sector; however, the Leaf software can be configured for all continuous processes. This represents a US$1.5 billion global market that is expected to reach US$10 billion by 2020 once the industrial sector has embraced the Internet of Things era.
Entrepreneurs: Gabriel Benarros & Marcelo Bissuh
Company: Ingresse
Description: Disrupting Brazil’s informal, inefficient, and frequently corrupt events market, Ingresse provides a user-first, end-to-end online ticketing platform for promoting, selling, and managing events. Its flagship app serves as a one-stop shop for B2C customers to conveniently book tickets to a variety of live cultural events, while giving B2B event organizers the tools to efficiently market and manage them. The company plans to saturate the Brazilian market and penetrate other Latin American markets to reach US$50 million in transaction volume by 2017.
COLOMBIA
Entrepreneurs: Catalina Álvarez, Mariana Hinestroza, & Alejandro Ceballos
Company: Agua Bendita
Description: Agua Bendita (AB) creates hand-made, premium swimwear by incorporating modern techniques and artisanal embellishments inspired by Colombian culture. Its designs have been featured in Sports Illustrated for nine consecutive years and are worn by celebrities worldwide. The entrepreneurs amplify AB’s strong brand identity by working with influencers like top models, such as Kendall Jenner, and famous fashion photographers on its catalogues. AB swimwear is set apart by its intricate details, which are the handiwork of 700+ Medellin-based artisans. Operating in the US$17.6 billion global swimwear market, AB products have a presence in over 50 countries.
DETROIT
Entrepreneur: Ryan Vaughn
Company: Varsity News Network
Description: Unlike colleges and professional sports teams, high schools lack the sponsorship dollars and human capital resources to connect to their fan bases online. Varsity News Network (VNN) is leveling the playing field with its sports marketing platform that gives high school athletic departments a centralized online presence to connect to and communicate with their local communities. VNN not only allows high schools to generate content, report scores and statistics, and sell tickets; it also allows national and local sponsors to gain access to local sports markets.
GREECE
Entrepreneurs: Nicholas Christodoulou & Alexandros Christodoulou
Company: CHB Group
Description: Christodoulou Brothers (CHB), Greece’s number one fruit processing group, is adding innovative processing technology to increase the value of the country’s fruit exports. Today, CHB sources fruit from more than 3,000 farmers and processes them into a variety of products like juices, canned fruits, fruit preparations, purees, sorbets, ice creams and coffee syrups. Drink bottling companies, dairies, ice cream manufacturers, baby food producers, supermarkets and the HORECA (hotels, retail and café) sector purchase CHB’s processed products because of the company’s variety and ability to adapt its formulas to client needs. In the US$274 billion global fruit and vegetable processing industry, CHB has its sights on becoming the world’s most innovative processing company.
Entrepreneur: Michalis Gkontas & Petros Pitsilis
Company: Forky
Description: Forky is a venture-backed, fast-growing, on-demand meal delivery company that brings delicious meals to your door in under 15 minutes. Through Forky’s web platform and mobile application, users choose from a menu of healthy Greek cuisine, including two main dishes each day, a salad, and various side orders. Forky utilizes automated dispatching technology to manage its 100-person motorcycle delivery fleet and minimize wait times, thereby saving time in customers’ busy lives. The easy-to-use interface allows customers to order food in only three clicks.
INDONESIA
Entrepreneur: Charles Guinot
Company: Online Pajak
Description: In Indonesia, 86.2% of government revenues come from taxation, but current collection rates remain low due to a complex and weak tax system. Companies particularly are burdened with having to report 15 different types of taxes multiple times per month, resulting in only 10% of more than 5 million companies fulfilling their tax obligation. OnlinePajak offers Indonesian enterprises an integrated online tax-filing software that enables them to prepare, pay and report their corporate taxes seamlessly. With 60,000 companies using the company’s free tax application, OnlinePajak aims to capture 100% of the US$225 million market within four years, and plans to expand to other verticals.
ITALY
Entrepreneur: Matteo Lai
Company: Empatica
Description: Empatica builds wearable devices with clinical-quality sensing capabilities, targeting the neurological disease space with an initial focus on epilepsy. The company’s first product, the E4, is the world’s smallest and most accurate wearable research device meant to track daily human behavior. Empatica sells the E4 to a long list of top research institutions, including MIT, Harvard, Stanford, NASA, Microsoft Research, and a number of Pharma companies. The firm’s consumer-facing Embrace wristwatch is designed to save lives by notifying epilepsy sufferers and their caregivers of seizures via smartphone. Unlike competitors, Empatica not only builds the sensors but also develops the software and analyzes data in-house.
LEBANON
Entrepreneurs: Hassane Slaibi & Bassam Jalgha
Company: Band Industries
Description: Band Industries is a music technology company that aims to build a tech-enabled toolkit for 21st century musicians. Its first product, the Roadie Tuner, is a non-invasive, automatic guitar tuner that is portable, easy to use and three times more accurate than the human ear. It enables amateur musicians to play in tune and arms intermediate players with tuning speed and precision. Roadie opens up new dimensions to music making by allowing guitarists to easily create and switch alternate tunings. It is currently selling worldwide in more than 55 countries.
Entrepreneur: Charbel Litany
Company: InMobiles
Description: InMobiles helps create value-added solutions for telecommunications operators and government sectors seeking to add new revenue streams. With increasing attention on data, traditional mobile network operators have struggled to find creative ways to stay relevant, particularly in pre-paid markets. Working in the Middle East and Africa, InMobiles has developed hundreds of software-based products in the areas of IP mobile messaging, call completion, convergence management, virtual numbers and social telephony to cover different markets in different stages of telecom development.
LOUISVILLE
Entrepreneurs: Andy Eastes & Slav Ivanyuk
Company: SkuVault
Description: The first-of-its-kind, cloud-based solution for eCommerce, SkuVault has helped nearly 500 online retail businesses in 86 cities keep track of their stock — what’s on hand, where it is, and when it’s available — to increase efficiency and reduce human error in tracking inventory and order fulfillment. In addition to providing around-the-clock visibility to warehouse operators, the software provides real-time updates to consumers, ensuring that quantities in storage correlate with product listings across various marketplaces and sales channels. Like its clients’ products now, SkuVault’s software is flying off the shelves: Having multiplied its revenues 15x in four years, the company is well on track to exceed US$150 million in revenues and reach 20,000 users in 20 countries by 2020.
MEXICO
Entrepreneurs: Carlos Salinas, Guillermo Villegas, William Kasstan & Laurène Maire
Company: Luuna
Description: Luuna’s founders know that a great day starts with a good night’s sleep. Luuna seeks to redefine the experience of buying a mattress by offering a high-quality product at an affordable price with one- to four-day home delivery across Mexico, a 30-night trial with a 10-year guarantee, and 12-month interest-free financing options. Leveraging the properties of both latex and memory foam, Luuna’s innovative mattresses provide adequate spinal support and comfortably mold to customers’ posture, preventing them from sinking and overheating.
Entrepreneurs: Jose Luis Nuño, Maria Laura Mendoza, Alejandro Nuño, & Rodrigo Nuño
Company: Unima
Description: A clean bill of health shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. For the rural poor in developing countries, doctors are hard to come by, and diagnosing diseases requires sending away tests to lab facilities — a costly and time-intensive ordeal. Unima is lowering the cost and time to access medical support with Signatural, a diagnostic technology that costs consumers US$1 and takes less than 15 minutes to diagnose a disease. As the first Mexican company to participate in Y Combinator, Unima has developed tests for HIV, TB, and influenza, and is currently starting clinical trials to commercialize its first products in late 2017. With over three billion people in developing countries living without access to timely diagnostics, Unima is poised to tackle the US$15 billion point-of-care diagnostics market and help those at the bottom of the pyramid battle infectious diseases
MIAMI
Entrepreneurs: Nedal Ahmad & Otto Othman
Company: Pincho Factory
Description: Pincho Factory’s Latin-inspired burgers and “pinchos” — the Spanish word for kebab — offer a fast-casual dining experience as diversely American as the city that calls it home. Pincho Factory’s American fusion cuisine (from the Tropical Salad to the Toston Burger) brings something for everyone to the table. The food is fresh, 100% natural, antibiotic-free, and always made to order. With seven locations in South Florida and a number of awards to its name — including 1st place at the Food Network’s 2015 Burger Bash — Pincho Factory is poised to scale its concept across Florida and the U.S.
MOROCCO
Entrepreneur: Ali Bensouda
Company: Omniup
Description:Omniup develops new technologies for the digital advertising space. In January 2015, Omniup launched its flagship software, Omniup Ads, which monetizes free Wi-Fi in public spaces by pushing video advertisements to all connected devices. Omniup is the first company of its kind in North Africa and already powers more than 900 internet hubs across 12 Moroccan cities and southern Spain. Omniup has applied for patents for its proprietary ad delivery technology in Morocco and in Europe.
PHILIPPINES
Entrepreneur: Farouk Meralli
Company: mClinica
Description: mClinica is connecting the world’s pharmacies to combat the data gap for healthcare stakeholders in emerging markets,. The company uses mobile technology to connect drug companies, their distributors, pharmacies and patients to each other. By unifying thousands of pharmacies on a single platform, the company’s ‘digital network’ collects a comprehensive and unique set of data — on pharmaceutical chains, patient demographics and prescribing practices — and also allows pharmaceutical companies to provide their end-customers with discounts and health education programs. With a footprint in the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, the company provides its pharmaceutical company clients with access to more 3,500 pharmacies, 50 million patients and billions of data points.
SOUTH AFRICA
Entrepreneur: Albé Geldenhuys
Company: USN
Description: Ultimate Sports Nutrition (USN), is a South African company that develops and delivers scientifically-advanced, clinically-aligned and safe sports supplements at affordable prices. Through its suite of products, which includes protein powders, weight management solutions, multi-vitamins, and performance supplements, USN enables people from all walks of life — not just athletes and bodybuilders — to maintain a healthy lifestyle. All of USN’s products are manufactured with the highest possible global standards, and are rigorously tested by accredited laboratories globally. Operating in the US$7 billion global dietary supplements market — expected to reach US$13 billion in 2020 — USN is the leading player in South Africa and hopes to become the number one sports supplement company globally with additional presence in the US, South America, Europe and Australia.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Entrepreneur: Vishaal Shah
Company: Panache International
Description: As both the population and food and beverage industry of the GCC and Africa grow, the need for disposable packaging for food service is more apparent than ever. Panache International provides disposable containers that suit any client’s requirements and budget, from basic goods such paper cups to high-end products like heavy-duty packaging materials. With reports estimating the global food service disposable market at US$53 billion in 2015 and growing 5% annually, the company is well-placed to capitalize on the opportunity.
