Endeavor Selects 32 Entrepreneurs from 13 Markets at the 85th International Selection Panel in San Francisco

Endeavor Puerto Rico Welcomes First Entrepreneur

Endeavor selected 32 high-impact entrepreneurs leading 17 companies from 13 markets at the 85th International Selection Panel (ISP) in San Francisco, California, held February 6-8, 2019, welcoming the first company selected from Puerto Rico, where Endeavor launched last year. Endeavor now supports 1,825 entrepreneurs leading 1,141 companies in 33 markets around the world.

The ISP is the culmination of a rigorous multi-step selection process to identify innovative and driven entrepreneurs who demonstrate the potential to leverage Endeavor’s resources and mentorship to create large-scale wealth and jobs, and are committed to reinvesting their time and money in their local entrepreneurship ecosystems to help others take off and make an impact.

Over the course of the three-day event, panelists drawn from Endeavor’s extensive network of board members, mentors, supporters, and experienced Endeavor Entrepreneurs, interview entrepreneur candidates about their businesses, evaluating them on their potential for high-impact growth, and deliberating on which candidates should be selected to become Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Panelists must vote unanimously for a candidate to become an Endeavor Entrepreneur.

“The ISP brings together the best minds in the Endeavor network with some of the most talented founders in growth markets globally. Thank you to all who commit their time and lend their expertise to serve as panelists, and congratulations to all of the entrepreneurs selected in San Francisco! We’re thrilled to welcome our first Endeavor Entrepreneur from Puerto Rico, and can’t wait to see more of the ecosystem’s talent,” commented Endeavor CEO Linda Rottenberg. 

The companies selected in San Francisco span a wide range of industries, including three Data, Marketing & Media companies, three Smart City companies, and three Enterprise Software and Service companies, with others operating in Healthcare, Education, F&B, Retail, and Fintech.  

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 impact. Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created 1.5 million jobs, generated $15 billion in revenue in 2018, and help build sustainable growth models in their home countries.

In 2019, ISPs will be held in Cairo (March 13-15), Madrid (April 24-26), Tokyo (July 1-3), Quito (August 5-7), Atlanta (September 23-25), Istanbul (October 21-23), and Riviera Maya (December 11-13). For more information on these events, please contact [email protected].

Thank you to Endeavor Global partner AXA, who generously sponsored the event.

Learn more about the companies and entrepreneurs selected in San Francisco below:

ARGENTINA

Entrepreneur: Pierpaolo Barbieri
Company: Ualá
Description: In Argentina, about 70% of adults transact fully in cash, over 50% do not possess a bank account, and only 12% have a credit line. And across LatAm, 48% of adults do not have access to formal financial services. Ualá is the region’s first one-stop shop digital financial services provider laser-focused on the unbanked and underbanked. It provides consumers with a pre-paid Mastercard and accompanying mobile application that enables free online payments, peer-to-peer transfers, and ATM withdrawals. The app also educates consumers by offering an automatically integrated personal finance management tool and personalized online support.

Entrepreneur: Demian Brener
Company: Zeppelin
Description: Zeppelin Solutions is a leader in the blockchain space as the go-to platform for smart contract development. It builds software to grow and protect the core infrastructure of an open economy powered by blockchain technology. It does so by building the infrastructure for developers to create and operate smart contract systems on. Zeppelin also conducts offline security audits of decentralized applications through a consulting service. Also, it recently launched a development platform for users to build secure blockchain-based applications (dApps).

BRAZIL

Entrepreneurs: Lodovico Brioschi and Dominique Oliver
Company: AMARO
Description: AMARO is a Brazilian direct-to-consumer, digitally-native brand that sells high-quality yet affordable apparel, footwear, and accessories both online and offline through 16 “Guide Stores,” which allow customers to touch and feel the products and receive their purchases at home. As the country’s first digitally native vertical brand, AMARO is providing customers with a superior customer experience, and leveraging data and technology to redefine the fashion supply chain and distribution model to a more agile and trend-focused one.

Entrepreneurs: Daniel Pires and Leonardo Rangel
Company: Cortex Intelligence
Description: Cortex offers a “Growth Intelligence Platform” which empowers informed decision making for sales & marketing teams in order to drive growth. The platform aggregates data from more than 10,000 external sources and integrates it with internal client data to deliver powerful insights into the effectiveness and ROI of a broad range of critical activities. Cortex provides its analysis through a user friendly, flexible dashboard that removes the guesswork and lets managers quantify the success of their sales and marketing investments.

BULGARIA

Entrepreneur: Alexander Rangelov
Company: IPS
Description: IPS is an energy solutions company that seeks to bring electricity to areas where the electrical grid is faulty or nonexistent through its flagship product, Exeron, a power generation system that uses solar, wind, and diesel energy to supply uninterrupted power. The system also includes an award-winning smart battery management system that extends battery life by 30% on average. Exeron is unique in the industry because it can perform in extremely harsh environmental conditions and its proprietary software-hardware integration makes the system manageable by non-engineers.

EGYPT

Entrepreneur: Mounir Nakhla
Company: Halan
Description: Halan is an on-demand ride-hailing and logistics company whose fleet consists of tuk tuks, motorbikes, and cargo tricycles. The company focuses on underserved communities that lack efficient, safe and reliable transportation options. Since Halan’s launch in November of 2017, it has facilitated over 4 million rides across Egypt and Sudan.

Entrepreneurs: Mahmoud Nouh, Ahmed Sabbah, and Mostafa Kandil
Company: SWVL
Description: SWVL is premium mass transit system that enables riders heading in the same direction on a fixed route to share a ride in a van or bus during morning and evening commutes for a fixed flat fare with no surge pricing.

GREECE

Entrepreneurs: John Papadakis and Andreas Vourkos
Company: Pollfish
Description: Pollfish is transforming the $76B market research industry by tapping into the network of hundreds of millions of smartphone users worldwide. With a platform that enables “do-it-yourself” market research surveys, Pollfish empowers consumer brands and advertising agencies to create a customized survey in minutes and push it out through a network of 140,000 App Partners consisting of 580M+ consumers across over 160 countries.

Entrepreneurs: Argyris Kaninis and Marios Stavropoulos
Company: Softomotive
Description: Softomotive is a provider of Robotic Process Automation products and services, with more than 7,000 clients worldwide. The company has two flagship products, WinAutomation and ProcessRobot, that bridge the gap of desktop and server-based software to improve operational efficiency and realize workforce potential.

INDONESIA

Entrepreneur: Marshall Pribadi
Company: PrivyID
Description: PrivyID is revolutionizing how individuals are identified and online agreements are executed in Indonesia. As the nation’s first legally-binding electronic signature and digital identity provider, PrivyID brings convenience, protection, and savings to the millions of Indonesians conducting business remotely each week. PrivyID believes the foundation of a healthy digital economy relies on trusted identity and digital signature, and has served over 2.7 million users to date with 14,000 more added every day.

ITALY

Entrepreneurs: Francesco Patarnello, Matteo Danieli, Luca Querella, and Luca Ferrari
Company: Bending Spoons
Description: Italy-based Bending Spoons is a global leader in mobile application development and marketing. With a portfolio of over 20 iOS applications across various categories including health and wellness and photo editing, among others, the company has received over 100M downloads in the last 2 years and currently receives roughly 290,000 downloads each day.

JAPAN

Entrepreneurs: Taka Miyasaka and Koji Minegishi
Company: BONX
Description: BONX is a communication technology company that produces stylish Bluetooth headsets as well as a mostly handsfree VoIP system for groups communicating with unreliable Internet connections. Having found success with the outdoor sports market, BONX is now penetrating other industries where this technology proves useful, including retail stores, hospitals, and corporate offices.

MEXICO

Entrepreneur: Noel Trainor and Noemi Valencia
Company: Knotion
Description: Knotion’s digital education platform helps schools in Mexico transition from traditional learning methods to a technology-based curriculum to redefine learning. Knotion’s solution includes a suite of interdisciplinary lesson plans and digital resources, including e-books, videos, and augmented reality, for K-9 classrooms. Each school year, parents pay per student license, giving their child access to Knotion’s digital lesson plans and real-time performance data via its iPad, Andoid tablet, or mobile application.

MIAMI

Entrepreneurs: Eddy Prado and Jorge Prado
Company: The Fastmind
Description: The Fastmind helps brands increase digital advertising sales conversions and organic conversions by up to 50%. Today, digital content can only be shared within the platforms that house it, but The Fastmind enables brands to seamlessly share content and products to users across all platforms at once. This unique technology helped 12 million users flexibly access content and e-commerce links via their platform of choice in 2018.

PUERTO RICO

Entrepreneur: Jason Borschow
Company: Abarca Health
Description: Abarca Health is a pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) that partners with health plans, employers, and government programs to manage drug costs and optimize the pharmacy and overall healthcare experience. Abarca Health has built a proprietary end-to-end PBM technology platform known as Darwin that serves more than 2.5 million patients, representing nearly $2B in annual drug spending. Clients of all sizes, including other PBMs, have leveraged the Darwin platform to improve the customer experience — designing drug coverage options, processing claims, enabling clinical programs, and running timely analytics.

SPAIN

Entrepreneurs: Ariel Quinones and Gonzalo Manrique
Company: Ironhack
Description: Today’s educational institutions fail to prepare students for tomorrow’s ever-changing workforce. Even with the advent of the digital age, traditional universities remain rooted in stagnant, antiquated curriculum that does not equip students to meet rapidly changing market demands. Ironhack is an educational community offering part-time and full-time technical courses across three disciplines — Web Development, UX/UI and Data Analytics — to fill the increasing gap in the education system and prepare the next generation of digital employees.

UAE

Entrepreneurs: Saman Darkan, Mohamad Ballout, and Andres Arenas
Company: Kitopi
Description: Kitopi, “Kitchen Operation Innovations,” is a network of interconnected optimized smart cloud kitchens that cook and deliver on behalf of food brands. The company provides the managed infrastructure and technology that enables food brands to open delivery-only locations with minimum capital expenditure and time. Kitopi handles all of the brands’ delivery orders through its network of kitchens so its clients can focus on running their dine-in restaurants and internal business operations.