Investment firm Entrepreneur First has raised $158m (£129.9m) in Series C funding from a who’s who list of notable technology founders from the likes of Stripe, Monzo and Wise.
Entrepreneur First plans to invest $100m over the next three years into the “next generation of tech founders”.
Entrepreneur First has attracted 13 angel investors who have founded or led high-profile tech companies in sectors ranging from fintech to AI.
The full list of Entrepreneur Series C investors are:
- John and Patrick Collison, co-founders of Stripe
- Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise
- Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn
- Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress
- Tom Blomfield, co-founder of Monzo and GoCardless
- Nat Friedman, former CEO of Github
- Sara Clemens, former COO of Twitch and Pandora
- Matt Robinson, co-founder of Nested and GoCardless
- Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Positive Sum
- Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman, co-founders of Deepmind
- Sten Tamkivi, co-founder of Teleport
- Elad Gil, technology entrepreneur and investor
- Lachy Groom, former head of Stripe Issuing, Stripe
Aside from providing funding, Entrepreneur First connects entrepreneurs with co-founders before launching a business. While traditional venture capital firms tend to focus on startups and ideas, Entrepreneur First looks for founders at the early stage of their journey.
“Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. The idea of taking strangers and helping them start robust and ambitious companies is no longer radical but essential to power the next stage of innovation,” said Matt Clifford, CEO and co-founder, Entrepreneur First.
London-headquartered Entrepreneur First was founded in 2011 by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck [pictured]. It has additional offices in Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Bangalore and Singapore employing 120 staff.
The investor has deployed funds in over 500 companies such as Magic Pony Technology, which was acquired by Twitter and Sonatic, which was acquired by Spotify.
Alice Bentinck, co-founder, Entrepreneur First, said: “As the value of EF’s portfolio companies passes $10bn, we feel we’re just getting started. We want EF to have a product to enable every ambitious individual to find their co-founder.”
Entrepreneur First raised capital through a funding round instead of a typical fund, as it looks at “up-ending the typical venture capital model”.
It’s the second founder-first fund this week with a vision of disrupting the VC model.
On Tuesday, Taavet Hinrikus and Sten Tamkivi this week launched their own £216m investment fund Plural to back early-stage startups.
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