Endeavor Catalyst Raises $320M to Back Founders 'Elsewhere' as VCs Crowd Into San Francisco AI

Endeavor Catalyst has closed its fifth fund with $320 million in capital commitments, bringing the firm's total assets under management to more than $850 million. The raise is welcome news for founders outside the Bay Area, who risk being overlooked as a growing share of venture dollars flows toward AI companies in Silicon Valley.

A Venture Arm Built for Founders Beyond the Major Tech Hubs

Endeavor Catalyst is the venture arm of Endeavor, a New York–based global nonprofit that has spent 30 years supporting founders outside major tech hubs. (It refers to all those other places simply as "elsewhere" throughout its marketing materials.)

The fund is run by managing partner Allen Taylor, a 20-year veteran of the organization, and managing director Jackie Carmel, who joined Endeavor Catalyst 12 years ago, alongside a 16-person team. The official general partner is Endeavor itself. As Linda Rottenberg, who co-founded Endeavor and helped launch Endeavor Catalyst in 2012, explains, "half of the fund's profits go back to Endeavor, so every investment helps the next generation of founders who are building elsewhere."

A Rigorous Selection Funnel

The bar for those founders is high. A person must first gain entry into Endeavor's network, where they can access the organization's mentoring and extensive connections — and that is no easy feat. Last year, the group says it screened more than 10,000 candidates and selected just 88. The network now spans over 3,100 entrepreneurs across more than 50 countries.

When one of those founders' companies raises at least $5 million in a round led by another institutional investor, Endeavor Catalyst can join on the same terms as that lead. The team tells TechCrunch that checks typically run $1 million to $3 million but cannot exceed 10% of the round. Over the next few years, the firm plans to make 40 to 50 investments annually, backing up to 150 companies in total with this new fund.

Portfolio Highlights

Taylor declined, via email, to share cash-on-cash return figures for earlier funds, but he pointed to some notable numbers. Across all five funds, he says, Endeavor Catalyst has backed 437 companies in 44 markets. Eighty-three of those startups are currently valued at $1 billion or more, and the unit has recorded 39 exits and 11 IPOs.

Some of the venture arm's most valuable holdings today include:

• ElevenLabs, the four-year-old maker of AI voice tools, recently valued at $22 billion in a secondary sale (originally founded in Poland).
• Bending Spoons, the 13-year-old Italy-based conglomerate that went public in July and currently boasts a $26 billion market cap.
• Reflection AI, the New York–based company founded by two former Google DeepMind researchers (one born in Greece), now valued at $25 billion.
• Checkout.com, whose founder is Swiss, valued last year at $12 billion.
• Flutterwave, the African payments infrastructure company, valued this summer at $3.2 billion.
• Replit, the AI coding startup co-founded by Palestinian-Jordanian Amjad Masad, which reached a $9 billion valuation earlier this year.

A Well-Connected Nonprofit Behind the Fund

Endeavor, the nonprofit, counts several highly connected figures among its associates, including board members Reid Hoffman; Nick Beim, a career VC who spent 25 years at Matrix Partners and then Venrock; and Edgar Bronfman Jr., the former head of Warner Music and Seagram, who chairs Endeavor's board.

via TechCrunch