Found, Don’t Follow

We turn exceptional individuals into funded founders. We back you first, then give you a bridge to Silicon Valley. You might have an early idea, or be testing a cofounder. You might have nothing. What we’re most interested in is you and your potential. We’re backed by Silicon Valley’s elite founders and investors. You will be too. Apply Here

We build unicorn cofounding teams from scratch, and support you to go from emerging idea to first revenue.

We help you find your optimal cofounder through our unique matching process. If you’re selected to join EF, you’ll:

  • Gain access to a pool of exceptional cofounders screened for their skills and behaviour
  • Attend our weekend residential retreat to kickstart your founding journey
  • Receive expert advice on who to pair with and how to test potential cofounders
  • Join a cohort of peers you’ll work alongside at one of our global offices
  • Participate in community talent events such as our Build Retreats and Hackathons, in partnership with the likes of Hugging Face, Lovable and Mistral

See more about who you could cofound with HERE.

Individuals join us at the very start of their founding journey. Some may have an idea, others will be working out which idea to pursue. We give you everything you need to move super fast and, by Demo Day, the top performing founders will be generating hundreds of thousands of revenue.

You’ll have a dedicated advisor on the ground to help you shape your idea—and a San Francisco-based partner to help you crack the U.S. market. With hands-on support from both sides of the Atlantic, we accelerate your path to building a world-class company. You’ll also have access to our intimate, off the record, fireside chats.

Barney Hussey-Yeo
Entrepreneurs First completely reframed what I thought I could achieve so early on in my career… it put me on a different trajectory.
Barney Hussey-Yeo, founder of Cleo, backed by Sofina

Once you've founded your company, 
we help you break into the world's top startup ecosystem.

Validate customers

Workshops on how to do customer development for the U.S. market

Establish a U.S. presence

3 months of office space in central San Francisco

Raise investment

Hands-on support to prepare your fundraising materials, including your pitch and deck

Pitch to leading investors

Pitch at our San Francisco Demo Day attended by 200+ partners from the world's leading VCs

Build investor relationships

Bespoke introductions to some of the world’s best investors

Launch in the U.S

Delaware C Corp incorporation guidance and relocation support

Our companies typically raise between 1-7M within a couple of weeks of pitching at our SF Demo Day.

Founders Fund, Sequoia, a16z, Index Ventures, Initialized, AI Grant, Emergence, Khosla Ventures, Susa Ventures, SignalFire, NfX, Abstract Ventures, Bessemer, Plural, Pear, Gradient and many more have invested in our companies after Demo Day.

Recent Demo Days have featured opening fireside chats with some of the most influential leaders in technology, including Reid Hoffman LinkedIn, Patrick Collison Stripe, Vinod Khosla Khosla Ventures, Jack Clark Anthropic, and Dwarkesh Patel. See more HERE

Simone Jensen
EF has been instrumental in our journey. We met nearly all of our major investors through the EF network in San Francisco, including our lead investor, Khosla Ventures, who we first met at Demo Day.
Simone Jensen, founder of Radical, backed by Khosla Ventures

We invest early, fast, and on founder-friendly terms.

Up to 250k

Investment once you form a company

Up to 5M

In follow-on funding through your future rounds, and continued support up to Series B

Over 600K

In credits to help you move at warp speed

9 Months

Office space in central London, Bangalore and San Francisco

We’re backed by Silicon Valley’s elite founders and investors. You will be too.

  • Founders Fund
  • Greylock
  • John Collision founder, Stripe
  • Patrick Collision founder, Stripe
  • Reid Hoffman founder, LinkedIn
  • Eric Schmidt former CEO, Google
  • Dennis Hassabis founder, Google Deepmind
  • Taavet Hinrikus founder, Wise
  • Matt Mullenweg founder, WordPress
  • Charlie Songhurst Board member, Meta
  • Christa Davies Board member, Stripe
  • Lachy Groom founder, Physical Intelligence
  • Aidan Gomez founder, Cohere
  • Mati Staniszewski founder, Elevenlabs
  • Danny Rimer Partner, Index Ventures
  • Matt Cohler former General Partner, Benchmark

Recent advisors and speakers include some of the world’s most prominent founders:

EF’s portfolio of companies is backed by the world's best VCs and now collectively valued at over $16B. You can see our full portfolio HERE

We turn exceptional individuals into funded founders. You might have an early idea, or be testing a cofounder. You might have nothing. What we’re most interested in is you and your potential.

EF is for individuals who have:

  • Continuously outperformed their peer group

  • Built products, organizations or startups in the past

  • The ambition to build a company in the U.S.