Entrepreneur First raises $158m, targets SE Asia

The capital was raised as a funding round rather than organised as a fund. It comes from individual investors, including John and Patrick Collison (co-founders of Stripe), Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn), Nat Friedman (former CEO of Github), Sara Clemens (former COO of Twitch and Pandora), and Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman (co-founders of Deepmind).

“We are entering a new era for venture funding, with a new generation of global founders needing support to build iconic companies from scratch,” Hoffman said in a statement. “Entrepreneur First represents a new way for talented people to access that opportunity and a new way to build start-up ecosystems outside Silicon Valley.”

EF claims that since its inception in 2011, the aggregate value of its companies globally has reached USD 10bn. Of this, the Southeast Asia portfolio accounts for more than USD 1bn. It employs around 120 staff with bases in London, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Bangalore and Singapore.

Exits have generated more than $680m to date. They include Magic Pony Technology (acquired by Twitter), Passfort (acquired by Moody’s), Credit Kudos (acquired by Apple), Atlas ML (acquired by Facebook), and Sonantic (acquired by Spotify).

Notable alumni from Singapore include Shiok Meats, a cultivated meat company that has raised USD 30m, and Hawksight, a decentralised finance app backed by the VC unit of blockchain giant Solana. EF Singapore also incubated Transcelestial, which is developing a “space laser” internet connectivity system.

The Singapore office is headed by Bernadette Cho, who was the first product marketing hire at regional super app Grab and led campaign launches for GrabPay Credits, GrabRewards, and GrabShare. She was also head of product marketing for Asia at LinkedIn and chief of staff at VC-backed crowdfunding platform Funding Societies. She is a partner at EF.

About USD 100m of the new capital will be invested directly into Southeast Asian start-ups over the next three years. There will also be investments in new systems aimed at improving the venture capital model.

“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 of EF.

“The whole EF thesis is finding individuals who otherwise might not start companies and then trying to accelerate their journey to success. EF is completely unique in the early-stage funding landscape. Our whole effort focuses on talent rather than typical venture capital deal flow. We don't try and win deals, we don't pick deals, we find great people.”

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Singapore
• seed
• HNWIs