E

Entrepreneurs First

Accelerator·London, UK·$200M (latest raise, 2026)

Entrepreneurs First is a talent investor that backs exceptional individuals before they have a team or an idea. Founded in London in 2011 by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck, EF runs a 12-week programme where participants find co-founders, develop ideas and build companies from scratch. It then invests up to $250k at pre-seed stage. EF operates across London, Paris, Bangalore, New York and San Francisco. Its portfolio, spanning deep tech to consumer, includes over 1,000 companies now collectively valued at more than $16 billion.

Focus Areas

Sector AgnosticDeep TechAIRoboticsClimate TechSpace TechEnterprise Software
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Portfolio

1 company in our directory

Olix logo

Olix

Hiring
Computer Hardware·Seed

Olix Computing is a London-based startup developing the Optical Tensor Processing Unit (OTPU), a new type of AI accelerator that uses photonics rather than traditional GPU architecture for AI inference. The company integrates photonics with an SRAM-based memory architecture, which it claims can outperform high-bandwidth memory systems in efficiency, throughput per watt, and overall cost. Originally registered as Flux Corp Ltd in March 2024, the company rebranded to Olix Computing. Founded by 25-year-old serial entrepreneur James Dacombe, who also runs brain-monitoring company CoMind, Olix has grown to over 70 employees and plans to ship its first products by 2027. Valued at over $1B.