The end of June saw a busy time for Endeavor, with a jam-packed schedule from the get-go. On June 23, we hosted “High Impact Talks,” inviting our mentors and Endeavor Entrepreneurs to hear about cap table governance and exits from the two heads of Internet Banking at Jefferies. Storm and Gaurav helped facilitate almost every major merger in the tech world that impacted people’s lives, including Google’s merger with Youtube. More recently, they advised Careem on its sale to Uber for $3.1 billion USD. These two, in addition from corporate lawyers who provided valuable advice on the challenges they faced advising the largest exit the history of the Middle East and North African region.
Just the next day was the 25th Endeavor UAE Local Selection Panel—the penultimate step in Endeavor’s rigorous selection process. Our board members and mentors gather to judge our pipeline companies on entrepreneur fit, scalability, and timing. If the entrepreneur wants to help give back and inspire other entrepreneurs, the company is highly scalable, and the company is at an inflection point in their growth, they will be given the go-ahead to proceed to an International Selection Panel.
It was wildly interesting to see the pipeline companies prepare for this panel in the weeks leading up to event and to watch their delivery on the day. Our mentors pushed them on their financials, long-term vision, and barriers to growth, among other criteria, while deciding if the company is highly scalable. Be on the lookout for Trukker, an online truck-booking app solving inefficiencies in the GCC’s and in Saudi Arabia’s logistics markets. If Trukker is successful in scaling up, it will greatly lower costs for businesses moving goods, decrease delivery times, and raise the standard of living for thousands of low-income workers driving trucks around the region.
The following week saw our team work on a project thanking our hardworking board members and mentors, as well as to prep pipeline companies for their final step in the Endeavor process, the International Selection Panel. The stakes were high with three entrepreneurs looking to achieve Endeavor Entrepreneur status in Tokyo. Thanks to their strong personalities and presentation skills, they all endured questioning from prominent mentors from all of Endeavor’s 33 offices worldwide. Bayzat, Lunch: On, and Eyewa all passed the ISP and were granted Endeavor Entrepreneur status. I am excited to follow all of the selected entrepreneurs as they continue scaling! Servicing for these newly selected entrepreneurs begins later this month.