Entrepreneur First, known a decade ago in London, has catapulted itself to a portfolio worth $10 billion over more than 500 companies.
It’s presently announcing its latest round of fundraising, $158 million. It raises the funds, which come in the form of a Series C, valued at about $560 million.
Entrepreneur First investors are majorly VCs and angels, two groups that are forever seeking greater signal in the startup noise.
EF is also bringing new backers, Patrick and John Collison, two brothers who co-founded Stripe, alongside other partners.
The partners and investors include people like Taavet Hinrikus, Tom Blomfield, Matt Mullenweg, Reid Hoffman, Nat Friedman, Sarah Leary, Lachy Groom, Claire Hughes Johnson, Sara Clemens, Elad Gil, and Matt Robinson.
Meanwhile, the Entrepreneur First’s co-founders Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck have revealed that about $100 million would be used to continue investing in more entrepreneurs and their startups. And it would be converting the investment efforts into an evergreen fund.
Enterpreneur First, unlike other VC funds, doesn’t take a 2% management fee on top investment from people in whom it invests.
According to Clifford, “No strings attached” for those that take EF’s money, “except if they do create a company within EF, say if two individuals build a company after finding each other through our program, they go to our investment committee after 12-14 weeks for us to get a chance to invest in that startup.”
EF aims to use the rest of the sum, which is about one-third of the funding, to continue building its company and grow its operations.
The company currently has 120 staff in offices in Paris, London, Toronto, Berlin, Singapore, and Bangalore. And it’s set to hire more.
EF also focused on building its actual product and software it calls Form, which sounds like an ERP.
Already, the EF’s team is using data science in its operation. It sounds like Form’s next iteration would be the next step to managing its portfolio database.
According to Clifford, “We got to $10 billion of portfolio value with what is essentially a single product for a specific type of founder,”.
He continued, “EF’s flagship product, Form, works incredibly well for first-time founders in the first six to seven years of their career who are ready to start right now.”
EF represents a new way for talented organizations and people to access opportunities and a new way to create startup ecosystems outside of Silicon Valley. The company is aiming to achieve a lot with this raise.
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