About Us

Founded in 2011 by Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford, Entrepreneur First is a category-defining global investor in entrepreneurial talent.

Our portfolio companies are backed by world-leading investors, including Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Softbank, and Khosla Ventures. Together they are worth over $11B and include a number of unicorns and successful exits.

We have offices in London, Paris, Bangalore, New York, and San Francisco; enabling EF to be the bridge to Silicon Valley that connects global talent to the richest startup ecosystem.

Pioneers of global talent investing

We started Entrepreneur First over a decade ago, after seeing many talented future founders become lost to the status quo. Outside of Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship is rarely seen as a viable route for ambitious individuals. Instead the ambitions of the talented are constrained by the current social currencies of success; high status jobs, citation counts, promotion cycles.

Our goal at EF is to liberate you from these artificial limits. To reframe what’s possible and help you shape the world in more profound ways.

We do this by building cohorts of exceptional peers, curated from leading academic institutions and tech communities around the world. We find and then support you, to realise what it takes to be a globally ambitious founder, and then accelerate your progress with a network of specialist advisors and experts you wouldn’t necessarily have had.

We do this so that talented people can make an impact now, not later – because we ultimately believe it matters not only which companies get started, but who starts them.

Matt Clifford;
Cofounder and Chairman of Entrepreneur First

“You don’t need decades of experience to build a technology startup. Your ability to become a founder is simply defined by the act of getting started.”

A bridge to Silicon Valley

When you join EF, we put you on the path to becoming funded, faster. You will gain access to a network of some of the world’s best founders, investors, and operators.

Over the years, we’ve seen more of our startups secure funding from leading investors in the Valley.

So we opened a new hub in San Francisco in early 2024 and will be bringing all our global cohorts here for the second half of the program.

Alice Bentinck;
Cofounder and CEO of Entrepreneur First

“We believe founders should spend time in SF because the level of ambition here helps supercharge their chances of success. This is about giving the brightest talent, the best chance, at the earliest opportunity.”

Backed by the World's Best

Reid Hoffman

Cofounder, LinkedIn & Inflection AI

Reid is the cofounder of LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, and continues to lead the company as Executive Chairman. In 2022, he cofounded Inflection AI and serves as a Board Member.

Reid is a partner at Greylock, who work with entrepreneurs to build market-transforming companies. Their portfolio includes Facebook, AirBnB, Dropbox and Entrepreneur First. Reid currently serves on the Entrepreneur First board. He also hosts the Masters of Scale podcast and is the co-author of four best-selling books - Blitzscaling, The StartUp of You, The Alliance, and Masters of Scale.

John Collison

Cofounder & President, Stripe

John is cofounder and president of Stripe, building financial infrastructure for the internet. Today, Stripe powers millions of online businesses around the world.

Prior to Stripe, John cofounded Auctomatic, which was acquired by Live Current Media for $5 million in March 2008. Originally from Limerick, Ireland, John splits his time between San Francisco and Dublin, Ireland.

Sara Clemens

COO, Whatnot

Sara is COO at Whatnot, Senior Advisor to Blackstone Growth, and sits on the Boards of Duolingo, Thorn, and Karat. From 2018 to 2022 she was COO at Twitch, leading the commercial, operations and go-to-market teams globally.

Prior to Twitch, Sara was COO at Pandora. Her efforts in the music industry placed Sara on Billboard’s coveted list of Most Powerful Women in Music in 2015 and 2016. She holds an MA with honors from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Patrick Collison

Cofounder & CEO, Stripe

Patrick is cofounder and chief executive officer of Stripe, building financial infrastructure for the internet. Today, Stripe powers millions of online businesses around the world.

Prior to Stripe, Patrick cofounded Auctomatic, which was acquired by Live Current Media for $5 million in March 2008. In 2016, he was named a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship by President Obama. Originally from Limerick, Ireland, Patrick now lives in San Francisco.

Noor Shaker

Cofounder, Glamorous AI

Noor is the cofounder of Glamorous AI, acquired by X-Chem. She was awarded the MIT Innovators Under 35, the Cogx Rising Star Award by the former British Prime Minister and named as one of the top leaders in AI healthcare by Forbes.

She holds a PhD from the IT University of Copenhagen (ITU) in Machine Learning and is the winner of multiple best papers and grants during her academic career.

Claire Hughes Johnson

Corporate Officer & Advisor, Stripe

Claire serves as a corporate officer and advisor for Stripe. Claire previously served as Stripe’s COO from 2014 to 2021, where she helped the company grow from fewer than 200 employees to more than 6,000.

Prior to Stripe, Claire spent ten years at Google, where she led various business teams including overseeing aspects of Gmail, Google Apps, and consumer operations. She also served as a vice president for Adwords online sales and operations, Google Offers, and Google's self-driving car project.

Claire has a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and an MBA from Yale. Claire currently serves on the boards of Ameresco, The Atlantic, Aurora Innovation, and HubSpot.

Zehan Wang

Cofounder & CTO, Magic Pony Technology (acq. Twitter)

Zehan is the cofounder and CTO of Magic Pony Technology, a video processing startup that was acquired by Twitter. He cofounded Magic Pony Technology with Rob Bishop at Entrepreneur First in 2014.

Zehan holds a PhD in Computer Vision and Biomedical Image Analysis from Imperial University in London.

Tom Blomfield

Group Partner, Y Combinator

Tom is the cofounder of two billion-dollar fintech companies in the last decade. In 2011, he cofounded GoCardless, an online payments processor for the Direct Debit system. He then went on to found Monzo, one of the first app-based challenger banks in the UK, in 2015.

He is now a group partner at Y Combinator.

Demis Hassabis

Cofounder & CEO, Deepmind

Demis Hassabis is the cofounder and CEO of Deepmind, who are developing neuroscience-inspired general-purpose learning algorithms and were acquired by Google in 2014.

Prior to Deepmind, Demis completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, was the founder and CEO of Elixir Studios, and completed a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from University College London. His research on memory and imagination was listed in the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of 2007.

Zoe Jervier Hewitt

Talent Director, Sequoia Capital

Zoe is Talent Director for Sequoia Capital. The team she leads partners with and advises founders, future founders, and outlier talent in Europe as they build enduring businesses. She previously led Talent at EQT Ventures and worked with hundreds of early stage founders at Entrepreneur First, where she was the first employee.

Zoe studied History of Art at the University of Oxford, is a qualified coach, and is passionate about developing and diversifying the tech leadership landscape.

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