About us
Entrepreneur First was founded in 2011 by Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford with the aim of enabling the world’s most ambitious people to build the most important companies, and that is still true today.
Originating in London, we now also have offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangalore, Paris and Berlin, and over 1,200 extraordinary people have gone through our programme globally.
It matters what the most ambitious people do with their lives, and we are proud to have helped create over 200 companies, worth $1.5bn combined.
BE THE TEAM FOUNDERS WANT TO WORK WITH
We are always looking to hire exceptional talent to join the team. If you’re interested in joining us on our mission, please see the available job openings.
A global team
We have almost 100 staff in six different countries worldwide, including a large number of trusted Venture Partners.
Our team finds, supports, and develops the world’s most ambitious individuals and helps them build the next generation of world-leading companies.
You can see our leadership team below.
Matt Clifford
CEO, Co-founder
Matt Clifford is co-founder and CEO of Entrepreneur First, which he started with Alice Bentinck in 2011.
Matt sits on the board of Code First Girls, which he co-founded in 2013 to teach young women how
to code.
Matt started his career at McKinsey & Co. and holds degrees from Cambridge and MIT, where he
was a Kennedy Scholar. He was awarded an MBE for services to business in the 2016 Queen’s
Birthday Honours.
Alice Bentinck
CPO, Co-founder
Alice Bentinck is co-founder and General Partner at Entrepreneur First, which she started with Matt Clifford in 2011.
She also set up Code First: Girls, a not-for-profit that has taught 5,000 women to code for free while
at university.
Alice started her career at McKinsey & Co. She was awarded an MBE for services to business in the
2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Joe White
General Partner & CFO
Joe is CFO and General Partner at Entrepreneur First.
Prior to EF, Joe was co-founder and COO of Moonfruit.com, sold to Yell Group in 2012 and is currently a non-exec director for The Behavioural Insights Team. He also served as a non-exec director at Demotix, a citizen journalism newswire, sold to Corbis in 2012.
Joe started his career at McKinsey & Co. and earned an MA in economics from Cambridge. He was awarded an MBE for services to technology businesses in the 2017 New Year’s Honours.
Tom Shinner
COO
Allister Furey
Managing Director, Europe
Coralie Chaufour
General Manager, Paris
Lavina Tien
General Manager, Hong Kong
Zefi Hennessy Holland
General Manager, Berlin
Esha Tiwary
General Manager, India
Jonny Clifford
General Manager, London
Frankie Le Nguyen
General Manager, Toronto
Entrepreneur First is backed by some of the world's best entrepreneurs, including the founders of LinkedIn, DeepMind and Paypal, as well as top VCs from Silicon Valley and Europe. We are also proud to be backed by our alumni, Rob Bishop and Bryan Baum, who both created companies on EF that they have since sold.
Reid Hoffman
Founder, LinkedIn
Demis Hassabis
Founder, DeepMind
Bryan Baum
Founder, Represent
Rob Bishop
Founder, Magic Pony Technology
Greylock Partners
Founders Fund
Lakestar
Mosaic Ventures