Endeavor selected 17 High-Impact Entrepreneurs from 11 companies from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Mexico, South Africa and Uruguay at its 48th International Selection Panel. Endeavor now supports 801 High-Impact Entrepreneurs from 500 companies in 15 emerging and growth market countries. The entrepreneurs were chosen at a panel held from May 6-8 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“It’s exciting to have so many new companies join the Endeavor community,” said Endeavor Co-founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg. “And it’s very special to have an ISP held in the birthplace of Endeavor, where some of our greatest entrepreneurs have come from!”
The International Selection Panel (ISP) is the culmination of a rigorous multi-step selection process. At the ISP, top local and international business leaders interview candidates about their businesses and high-impact potential, and then vote on whether or not candidates become Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Post-selection, Endeavor provides entrepreneurs with customized services, including introductions to local and international business mentors and volunteers from Fortune 500 consulting firms. Endeavor Entrepreneurs have had a significant track record of creating thousands of jobs and building sustainable growth models in their home countries.
Endeavor will host three additional International Selection Panels this year: Johannesburg, August 2013; Palo Alto, CA, October 2013 and Dubai, UAE, December 2013.
Brief descriptions of the selected entrepreneurs and companies follow:
Argentina
Entreprenuer: Ariel Gesto
Company: InvGate (www.invgate.com)
Description: InvGate develops software for IT infrastructure management that allows medium-to-large enterprises to configure, monitor and manage all of their IT assets remotely, as well as centralize IT help requests. By incorporating the latest trends in Web 2.0, gamification and social networking, InvGate is able to deliver an innovative and user-friendly interface.
Entrepreneurs: Luis Robbio, Alejandro Robbio, Federico Robbio
Company: Belatrix Software SA (www.belatrixsf.com)
Description: Belatrix provides software innovation and quality assurance services to firms across multiple industries in North America and Europe. Belatrix is engaged by customers to co-innovate with them, ideate, design, and develop custom software products and to ensure that existing software products perform as expected. Belatrix hopes to lead the trend as IT outsourcing moves away from India: the company has operations in Argentina, Peru, and the US.
Brazil
Entrepreneur: Darci Schneid
Company: Sirtec (www.sirtec.com.br)
Description: SIRTEC builds and maintains electrical networks for power utilities in Brazil, ensuring that the electrical providers meet key performance indicators related to frequency and duration of energy disruptions. With 900 employees, SIRTEC currently services three large utilities in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), providing third party implementation, repair, and transmission services
Entrepreneur: Jamie de Paula
Company: Neoway (www.neoway.com.br)
Description: Neoway’s proprietary Market Intelligence Software (SIM) accesses and analyzes large, publicly available databases in Brazil, aggregating the relevant information for customers to generate business leads. Neoway’s software can isolate information across a variety of key market factors with intuitive data visualization outputs. Currently, Neoway’s core client base spans the healthcare, construction and oil and gas sectors.
Chile
Entrepreneur: Pablo Godoy
Company: Inzpiral (www.inzpiral.com)
Description: Inzpiral is a BI software solution company consisting of three product platforms, each compiling, consolidating and analyzing large data sets for the optimization of pricing and distribution strategies. Inzpiral’s solutions primarily apply to the Retail/CPG market, however, Pablo has also proven his platform’s value to mining and telecommunications customers. Operating solely in Chile, Inzpiral is set to expand to Peru in 2014 and has managed to maintain a 100% client retention rate with some of Chile’s largest retail and CPG companies.
Colombia
Entrepreneurs: Juan José Mesa, Andrés Angel
Company: Glüky Group (www.gluky.co)
Description: Glüky provides corporations with the technology, strategy, and operational capacity to design and implement incentives programs for employees, sales channel partners, and clients. Its new cloud-based platform, the Glüky Network, harnesses the power of social networking features to provide clients with a robust platform to recognize, reward, and effectively motivate their employees and partners.
Greece
Entrepreneur: Christos Papadimitriou
Company: Papadimitriou (www.papadim.com)
Description: Papadimitriou is a family business founded in 1939 in Kalamata to export currants from the Pelopponese region of Greece. In the late 1990′s, Papadimitriou transformed to become a producer of all-natural balsamic vinegars and mustards in unique Mediterranean flavors, all derived from currants. Today it sells these value-added products in major supermarkets in Greece, where it is the balsamic vinegar market leader, as well as in 28 export markets.
Mexico
Entrepreneur: Juan Carlos Guerra
Company: Eco-Klin (www.ek.com.mx)
Description: Eco-Klin offers Mexican auto shops nationwide an integrated, environmentally friendly solution for their waste management needs. This consists of auto parts washing machine service, used oil collection, and hazardous waste collection. Clients receive credits for each liter of used oil collected, which can be used to defray the cost of the other services. Eco-Klin then sells the collected oil to re-refineries at a significant profit.
Entrepreneurs: Alejandro Cuervo, Arturo Macip
Company: IPETH (www.ipeth.edu.mx)
Description: IPETH, a new university based in Puebla, Mexico, offers bachelors degrees in physical therapy and primarily targets low-income students who would not normally enroll in a four-year degree program. The university focuses on providing world class instruction and solid employment opportunities for alumni. IPETH is now expanding with a new campus in Mexico City and new undegraduate and post-graduate degree programs, and plans to rapidly scale its enrollments over the next few years.
South Africa
Entrepreneurs: Dennis Marketos, Paul Marketos
Company: Metrix Software Solutions (www.isometrix.com/index.php)
Description: In a global regulatory environment that is becoming increasingly standardized and stringent across industries, companies are at risk of irresponsible corporate practices and violating industry requirements for which they can be heavily fined. Metrix Software Solutions offers evaluation tools that review governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) status in real-time and display it for company personnel in a user-friendly, fully-customizable dashboard. Metrix first launched its proprietary GRC software product, IsoMetrix, in the mining sector in South Africa, and has since expanded across industries and geographies.
Uruguay
Entrepreneurs: Sergio Fogel, Andrés Bzurovski
Company: AstroPay (www.astropay.com)
Description: AstroPay enables international ecommerce websites to accept local payments from Latin America. Through its innovative platform, AstroPay addresses the three fundamental problems facing the Latin American e-commerce consumer: it provides a payment method for those without an international credit card, protects against phishing and identity theft, and prevents purchases from being rejected because of the merchant company’s regulations.
Endeavor Partner Ernst & Young hosted their annual World Entrepreneur Conference and World Entrepreneur of the Year Awards program in Monte Carlo June 5 – 7 and a number of Endeavor Entrepreneurs were highlighted during the event. Three Endeavor Entrepreneurs were winners at the country level for this year’s WEOY competition: Mario Hernandez of Marroquinera (Colombia): Martin Migoya from Globant (Argentina); Jorge Pacheco from Oxxean (Chile). In addition, two Endeavor Entrepreneurs — Labib Shalak of Mobinets (Lebanon) and Karina von Baer, an Endeavor Entrepreneur for her original company Oliotop (Chile) — were invited to be part of event panels. A new part of this year’s program were the Mentoring Great Minds business plan review sessions, where Endeavor Entrepreneurs Gustavo Travasso of MXT (Brazil) and Felipe Valdes of Tiaxa (Chile) met with a group of panelists from EY, former EY Entrepreneur of the Year Winners and Endeavor Board Chair Edgar Bronfman for highly interactive discussions about their business challenges. Huge thanks to Maria Pinelli and her team from Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Markets for their help in highlighting Endeavor at this year’s conference. “It is great to see both companies take advantage of the synergies in their missions – kudos for that, ” said entrepreneur Valdes. “Nothing helps entrepreneurs more than a network of talented and committed people coming together.”
