Endeavor Catalyst raises $320M for founders 'elsewhere'

Endeavor Catalyst has closed its fifth fund with $320 million in capital commitments, bringing the venture firm’s total assets under management to more than $850 million. The raise is notable because it targets founders outside the Bay Area at a moment when more funds are clustering around AI companies in Silicon Valley. Endeavor Catalyst is the venture arm of Endeavor, a New York-based global nonprofit that has spent 30 years supporting founders in markets outside the major tech hubs — what the organization calls “elsewhere.” Half of the fund’s profits flow back to Endeavor, co-founder Linda Rottenberg said, so “every investment helps the next generation of founders who are building elsewhere.”

The fund invests alongside other institutional investors: when an Endeavor-network founder’s company raises at least $5 million in a round led by someone else, Endeavor Catalyst can join on the same terms, typically writing checks of $1 million to $3 million that can’t exceed 10% of the round. Over the next few years, the team plans 40 to 50 investments annually, reaching up to 150 companies with this new fund.

Across all five funds, Endeavor Catalyst has backed 437 companies in 44 markets, according to managing partner Allen Taylor; 83 of those are now valued at $1 billion or more, with 39 exits and 11 IPOs. Its most valuable holdings include ElevenLabs, the Poland-founded AI voice-tools maker recently valued at $22 billion in a secondary sale; Bending Spoons, the Italy-based conglomerate that went public in July at a $26 billion market cap; Flutterwave, the African payments infrastructure company valued at $3.2 billion this summer; and Replit, the AI coding startup co-founded by Amjad Masad that reached a $9 billion valuation earlier this year.

About 90% of the venture arm’s investments are outside the US, and Latin America remains its largest region, though Europe is growing fastest — 12 new investments in the first half of 2026, versus 14 in all of last year. The new, 400-LP fund includes Reid Hoffman, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, and Dutch investment group Prosus; roughly 30% of its backers are Endeavor founders themselves, including the founders of Nubank, Revolut, and Checkout.com. Repeat founders are a growing share of the portfolio too: about 14% of the fourth fund went to second companies from Endeavor founders, a number the team expects to reach 20% with the new fund.

Why it matters

Endeavor Catalyst’s track record — 83 billion-dollar companies built mostly outside the US, with Latin America as its largest market — suggests capital for founders in overlooked regions can produce Silicon Valley-grade outcomes without a Bay Area address. As more VCs concentrate on a narrow set of AI startups in San Francisco, that bet on “elsewhere” could become harder to ignore.