One of Louisville’s burgeoning tech startups is about to be much more connected to the national startup scene.
That’s because Limitless Minds was one of three companies that received “the tap on the shoulder” — in the words of Endeavor Midwest Managing Director Jackson Andrews — out of the four that presented during the three-day Endeavor National Selection Panel that took place in Louisville from April 17-19.
The other two startups chosen were NavMD, a software company based out of the Kansas City metro; and CoverTree, an insurance company based out of Detroit.
I spoke with Harry Wilson IV, the co-founder and CEO of Limitless Minds, on the morning of April 19.
“Just gratitude… and also, I guess maybe validation,” Wilson told me about the emotions that swirled following the news. “It’s like anything you get when people invest in you, whether that might be capital or investing time, energy, resources. … It just validates that the work that you're doing is being seen period — and seen as valuable — and people believe in you.”
Wilson, whose company was named one of our 2024 Startups to Watch, found out about Endeavor in large part from his wife who grew up with Andrews (who announced in February he would be stepping down from his role). He added that several of his company’s investors had connections to Endeavor as well.
I first sat down with Wilson and Antonio Melo, the company’s chief experience and product officer, in May for a profile story, to find out how it plans to create “corporate athletes” through on-demand mindset training and other platforms.
The company’s headcount is currently at 14, but Wilson hopes to expand in certain “critical” roles, Wilson said. It has currently raised $1.7 million of a $2.5 million pre-Series A round. It has raised $5.2 million since it began doing so in 2022.
To be selected, the companies had to pitch to six panelists out of a pool of 12 — and then pass by unanimous vote based on the three-pronged criteria of the entrepreneurs themselves, the growth potential of the businesses and the overall timing (projected to have an inflection point of growing 10 times larger).
Some panelists of local interest included Julia Regan, the CEO and founder of RxLightning; Stacy Griggs, the CEO and president of El Toro; Kim Halbauer, the Kentucky regional president of Fifth Third Bank; Andy Eastes, the co-founder of SkuVault; and Ankur Gopal, the CEO and founder of Interapt.
Up next: Ireland?
Endeavor holds four international selection panel (ISP) events a year. Next up for Wilson and his team at Limitless Minds will be to determine when they will present at that event. The next event is May 22-24 in Nairobi, Kenya, but the most realistic time for Limitless Minds to present will be in Dublin, Ireland from Sept. 16-18, said Jake Budler, the director of entrepreneurial experience at Endeavor Midwest.
“We’ll sit down and kind of map it out … It’s all the best companies around the world,” said Budler, who is based out of Indianapolis.
In July 2022, New Albany, Indiana-based RxLightning was able to complete a rare feat by skipping the national selection panel level, and then being voted in unanimously by the ISP.
In 2022 alone, Endeavor took more than 3,000 startups into consideration, before having 252 of them chosen to present at local or national selection panels. Out of those companies, 121 made it to the international selection panel — and 83 were chosen unanimously from that group, meaning that the selection rate was somewhere in the vicinity of 2% to 3% (which is the same rate to be accepted to Harvard University, for comparison).
Endeavor was founded in 1997 as a way to support and invest in high-growth startups in overlooked markets around the world. The organization currently operates in 42 countries and eight U.S. markets, while managing a $500 million global venture fund called Catalyst, according to information provided by Endeavor.
One of the U.S. markets is Endeavor Midwest, which is based out of Louisville, and covers Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. It was founded by Andrews in 2014.
Since its founding, Endeavor has supported 76 companies that have reached $1 billion in value (unicorn status), while also seeing the total number of companies supported create more than four million jobs and generate more than $28 billion in annual revenue.
On the local front, Endeavor Midwest Entrepreneur companies have a combined estimated revenue of $345 million alone.
