Endeavor has announced the three companies that will participate in the second cohort of the 2021 Scale Up program across Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. In partnership with EY, Scale Up supports high-potential, fast-growth entrepreneurs in the region. The program is a growth accelerator that connects Scale Up Entrepreneurs to the resources, successful entrepreneurs, and mentors across Endeavor’s regional network to scale to the next level.
Scale Up Program
Through Endeavor’s five-month Scale Up program, entrepreneurs receive curated, direct mentorship from current Endeavor Entrepreneurs and other successful entrepreneurs. As part of the program, Scale Up Entrepreneurs will complete GrowthX’s product market fit workshop focused on identifying an ideal customer profile and intentionally growing revenue. Each Scale Up Entrepreneur will also receive a complete Financial Review from leading global financial firm and Endeavor partner, EY. The program closes with a Scale Up Acceleration Panel in which each entrepreneur pitches to and receives tactical feedback from top mentors. In 2021, Endeavor is running two Scale Up cohorts, each with a maximum of four participating companies.
“Through Scale Up, early-stage entrepreneurs in our region get access to incredible resources from EY, GrowthX, and Endeavor Entrepreneurs – becoming part of Endeavor’s strong regional network,” explained Jackson Andrews, Endeavor’s Managing Director. “We are so excited to launch the next cohort of Scale Up with amazing entrepreneurs from all across the region.”
Mentors from leading regional organizations, including InnovateMap (Indianapolis), Thompson Hine LLC (Cincinnati), On Plane Consulting (Louisville), VentureFirst (Louisville and Cincinnati), and Fleur de Lis Communications (Louisville) will also provide tailored mentoring and resources to Scale Up Entrepreneurs.
The three companies selected to participate in this cohort are:
Company: Annex Capital
Entrepreneurs: Andy Love (co-founder) and Trey Gossom (co-founder)
Location: Louisville, KY
Industry: Real Estate
Annex Capital is a hard-money lender for real estate investors, specializing in private money loans for investors to finance between 1 and 4 unit properties. As property markets boom across Middle America and more buyers seeking turnkey properties, Louisville-based Annex Capital is capitalizing on the growing trend of home rehabilitation and development.
Already operating across Louisville, southern Indiana, Cincinnati, Lexington, and Indianapolis, Annex Capital’s process allows real estate investors to fund their projects in as little as five days – compared to traditional bank financing which can take between 45 to 60 days. Annex’s business-to-business lending model has primed it for fast growth across the region and beyond. Learn more at https://hardmoneyannex.com/.
Company: Native
Entrepreneurs: Sarah Sanders (COO) and Frank Pica (CEO)
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Industry: Foodtech
Native is a provider of real-time market and consumer intelligence – focused on helping food and beverage (F&B) and consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands to uncover, analyze, and act on customer feedback and improve product offerings. Native helps these brands to fuel their product development, marketing, and sales through an AI-powered natural language processing technology platform.
On the heels of a $1.75M pre-seed fundraise with investors from organizations like Blue Apron, USDA, and the Kellogg Company, Native is positioned to scale its end-to-end data and artificial intelligence platform. Native is growing in a massive initial addressable market, the $7.5B AI solutions in the CPG industry and exploding with early market demand. Learn more at https://www.gonative.ai/.
Company: GoodMaps
Entrepreneurs: Jose Gaztambide (CEO)
Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Industry: Smart Cities
GoodMaps is an indoor mapping platform that makes it easy to make spaces more accessible, welcoming, and safe through LiDAR-based digital mapping. The company’s mapping platform breaks through prior market limitations by utilizing LiDAR, embedding use-cases, and focusing on data security and selective sharing. Founded in Louisville, Kentucky in 2019, GoodMaps provides low-barrier navigation and positioning tools – making its maps hyper-accurate while requiring no hardware infrastructure whatsoever.
GoodMaps Founder and CEO, Jose Gaztambide shares, “GPS wayfinding has made it possible for blind and visually impaired people to independently travel outdoors but it does not work indoors. By utilizing revolutionary LiDAR and camera-based mapping, GoodMaps quickly creates secure indoor digital maps and provides indoor positioning as accurate as a couple feet, all without the need for any hardware.” After a strategic partnership with Accessible Avenue launched early in 2021, GoodMaps is ready to continue its expansion across the US to further its mission to improve the accessibility, safety, and productivity of indoor spaces. Learn more at https://www.goodmaps.com/.
About Endeavor
Endeavor is the world’s leading community of high-impact entrepreneurs. Founded in 1997, Endeavor is a global organization with a mission to unlock the transformational power of entrepreneurship by selecting, supporting, and investing in the world’s top founders. Today, Endeavor’s network spans nearly 40 countries and supports more than 2,000 entrepreneurs, whose companies generate combined revenues of over $28 billion US, have created more than 3.9 million jobs, and, in 2020, raised over $4 billion US in capital. Endeavor’s unique entrepreneur-first model and network of trust provide a platform for founders to dream big, scale up, and pay it forward to the next generation of entrepreneurs.
For entrepreneurs and business leaders interested in learning more about Endeavor, please visit endeavor-ky-in-oh.org and Endeavor.org.
