London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

A seed accelerator that sold a startup to Twitter for $150 million says London is becoming more like Silicon Valley — 'The talent pipeline is there'

A seed accelerator that sold a startup to Twitter for $150 million says London is becoming more like Silicon Valley — 'The talent pipeline is there'

Entrepreneur First is a global talent investor that identifies potential entrepreneurs and helps them find partners and develop business ideas. Founded by two British entrepreneurs in London, the scheme now spans six different cities worldwide and closed a new $115 million fund earlier this year.
 Founding companies is never easy and for many, entrepreneurship is a route swathed in uncertainty.

Entrepreneur First, a London-founded startup incubator, is seeking to change that by bringing wannabe entrepreneurs together, helping them find partners and develop business ideas. The company, founded in 2011 as a non-profit, brings in cohorts of founders each year across six cities worldwide and pays each one a stipend for living expenses.

The lack of a British Google or Facebook is not because of a lack of talent or capital, according to EF, rather that bringing those elements together has traditionally been tricky because entrepreneurship was not as culturally natural as it is in Silicon Valley.

 "Silicon Valley has a 70-year history whereas careers in the UK were more governed by prestige," founders Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford said in an interview with Business Insider. "Now, you see new tech companies bring in millions in equity and that impact gives you more leverage as an individual to succeed."

In exchange for a stake in any companies started, EF provides pre-seed funding and training — putting attendees through a speed-dating process of sorts with other potential founders, while giving them a bootcamp of intensive classes to navigate typical startup hurdles.

The boom in available VC funding has helped upend the typically conservative British views toward risk and entrepreneurship, say the founders.

"Usually friends and family might be worried about someone quitting their stable traditional career to found a business," Clifford told Business Insider. "It's the complete opposite of Silicon Valley, but that's changing fast and the talent pipeline is there."

EF invests up to 15% in seed rounds for successful companies and has also participated in series A financings but focuses primarily on pre-seed. Bentinck and Clifford closed a $115 million fund in February this year with investment from institutional investors from the US, Europe, and Asia as well as TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus.

Another investor in the new fund was Rob Bishop, an EF alumnus, who sold his company Magic Pony Technology to Twitter for $150 million in 2016. Another notable exit was Bloomsbury AI which was bought by Facebook last year for an undisclosed amount.

EF says it looks for prospective founders rather than pre-formed businesses and wants to leverage the abilities that individuals have. "We see a lot of copycat ideas coming through and someone with 10 years experience in banking who wants to do music discovery doesn't necessarily have an edge there," Bentinck said. "We want founders to embrace solutions they have an advantage in, rather than look at problems they see in their personal life."

To-date the company, which has outposts in Singapore, Paris, Berlin, Bangalore, and Hong Kong, has helped more than 1,200 individuals build over 200 technology companies, collectively worth $1.5 billion, according to UK Tech News. EF was recently part of the seed financing of one of its cohort companies, Vine Health, which raised the largest seed round in UK history for all female founders out of EF.

Beyond London, the company had its largest investor day to-date in Singapore earlier this month with a number of deep tech startups on show, according to Tech in Asia.

"You can't take a short-term perspective on building good businesses," founders Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford told Business Insider in an interview. "Top talent needs to be nurtured long term with ambition at every stage like an institution would. We want to be the Harvard of venture capital."




Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
After 200,000 Orders in 2 Minutes: Xiaomi Accelerates Marketing in Europe
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
×