Entrepreneur First (EF), a UK based global talent investor, has formally launched its programme in Bangalore, India. EF has a programme model that invests in individuals, even before they have an idea and helps them find co-founders and raise seed funding. It has selected 52 individuals for its first cohort in India after receiving over 900 applications.
Founded in 2011 by Matthew Clifford and Alice Bentinck, who worked as management consultants at McKinsey & Company, over 1,200 individuals have been through the EF programme, creating more than 230 companies, with a total portfolio valuation of almost $1.5 billion. Bangalore is its sixth global location after London, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Entrepreneur First also announced the appointment of Esha Tiwary as General Manager, India. “We are very ambitious about the Indian market and can foresee this becoming one of the largest global plays for EF. Given our ambition for India, we have brought in Esha Tiwary to lead our India operations. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in building and scaling startups, and will be an asset for EF,” said Matthew Clifford, Chief Executive and Co-Founder, Entrepreneur First. Esha Tiwary was the director for emerging categories at Myntra before joining EF.
“Launching in India was never in doubt. The quality of applicants even in our very first batch has been very impressive. This tech city offers a very dynamic start-up environment. Bangalore was the obvious choice for EF’s entry into the Indian market, and I am looking forward to seeing the companies that our first batch of founders in India will build,” said Anne Marie Droste, Global Expansion Director, EF. EF has allocated $ 25 million to scale up its programme in India over the next three years.
The Programme
Each year EF announces 2 cohorts in each location and invites applications. This is followed by interviewing, shortlisting applicants, and finally announcing a cohort. Of those who register, about 50 to 100 promising individuals form a cohort and are paid a stipend for the duration of the programme. These founders then go on to select co-founders and build companies with the support of EF. Selected companies get funded by EF and are also showcased to the larger investor community to raise seed funding.
The programme itself is split into two parts : form and launch. Between 50 to 100 people join the form phase depending on the location and each person is paid a monthly stipend of $ 2,000. During this phase, lasting about 14 weeks, co-founders are matched and ambitious ideas are developed and refined. The launch phase lasts six months and begins with an investment of $55,000 in a select group of teams that have completed the form phase. During the form phase, teams work with dedicated advisors and get to pitch at a region-wide Demo Day. This is followed by EF helping raise a seed round, during fundraising office hours. EF also invests 15 per cent in the seed round.
In return, EF claims a 10 percent equity share in the company.
“We invest in people who have the will, ambition and skills to succeed. At EF, our investment is in talented individuals who go on to find the right co-founder in their cohort and build globally competitive companies. We believe that the world is missing out on it’s best founders and it matters what the most ambitious people do with their lives,” said Matthew Clifford. “We launched very quietly in India three months ago and started looking for these individuals. The way we search is we go to universities, to industry, we track people down through LinkedIn and other sources, get referrals from people.”
EF has had four exits to date totalling around $ 300 million: Magic Pony, Avocarrot, Represent and Bloomsbury.ai. Magic Pony was sold to Twitter for a reported $150m, 18 months after the founders met on EF.
So far, EF has helped its portfolio companies raise $ 350 million. “That is almost doubling every year. Because the growth of the cohorts has been so rapid, in 2018 the portfolio raised more money than the portfolios of every year before that put together,” said Matthew Clifford. “We typically find that between 66 and 75 per cent of our graduates successfully raised a seed round. Of all the ones that have raised a seed round, about 60 per cent go on to raise further Series A.”
EF is backed by the founders of LinkedIn, DeepMind and PayPal. In 2017, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock, led a $12.4million investment into Entrepreneur First. As part of his investment, Hoffman joined the board of EF. EF has also partnered with HAX to co-invest in hardware startups (Chosen teams will receive $ 180,000 in cash and $ 75,000 in resources). The EF+HAX programme is available in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangalore.
