Alice Bentinck

Who they are

Alice Bentinck is CEO & Co-Founder of Entrepreneur First — she also founded Code First: Girls, the UK's largest provider of free coding courses for women, which has taught over 250,000 women to code, and in 2024 started Peripheral Labs, building AI models to reconstruct live sports in photorealistic 3D.

Person

Alice Bentinck co-founded Entrepreneur First from scratch in 2011 — day one, pre-revenue, no portfolio — and has spent her entire career building it into a global talent investor with 600+ companies and $11B+ in combined portfolio value. She read Management Studies at Nottingham University Business School (First Class Honours, 2008), then went straight into McKinsey as a management consultant before a stint interning at the Office of the Prime Minister via the Africa Governance Initiative — an unusual combo of hard commercial rigour and public-sector exposure that shows up in how EF operates at system scale. She served as CPO at EF for years before stepping up to CEO. Alongside EF she founded Code First: Girls in 2012 — a not-for-profit that has now taught over 250,000 women to code for free, making it the largest provider of such courses in the UK. In 2024 she launched Peripheral Labs, an AI venture building photorealistic 3D reconstructions of live sports. She co-authored 'How to Be a Founder' (2022) with Matt Clifford, writes a Substack ('Starting up from Scratch' at alicebentinck.substack.com), contributes to TechCrunch and Medium, and keeps a personal site at alicebentinck.com — her public writing centres on co-founder dynamics, talent-first investing, and what actually separates founders who succeed from those who don't. The through-line across everything: she builds the infrastructure that produces founders, not just companies.

Company

Entrepreneur First's most recent major move is a $200 million raise from a constellation of top-tier founders and investors — John and Patrick Collison, Eric Schmidt, Claire Hughes Johnson, Charlie Songhurst, Sara Clemens, Danny Rimer, and Matt Cohler, alongside Greylock — putting it at a unicorn valuation of $1.3 billion. The fresh capital follows a structural shift EF made in 2024: requiring all pre-seed-funded founders to relocate to the Bay Area ahead of their seed rounds, a move that has reportedly halved average time to raise and doubled valuations. EF now describes itself as headquartered in San Francisco, a significant reorientation for a firm that started in London and built its identity around European and global talent. The portfolio spans 600+ companies with a combined valuation over $11 billion. EF's model — backing individuals before they have a co-founder or idea, then helping them build from scratch — remains its core differentiator.

Market

EF operates in the pre-seed company-building space, explicitly differentiating itself from accelerators like Y Combinator and Wayra by working with individuals rather than existing teams — it has described itself informally as the 'CAA for startups.' Global venture investment hit a record $300 billion in Q1 2026, driven by AI compute and frontier lab spending, which both raises the competition for top technical talent and creates a larger addressable market for EF's cohort model. The strategic pivot to the Bay Area signals a direct push to compete for deal flow and founder outcomes in the world's most densely funded startup market.

Network

Matt Clifford is Alice's closest long-term collaborator — co-founder of EF, co-author of 'How to Be a Founder', now serving as non-executive Chair. Reid Hoffman is both an investor and board member at EF. EF's global partner network includes Rachel Zimmer (Toronto), Coralie Chaufour (Paris), and Bernadette Cho (Singapore), reflecting the firm's multi-hub structure.

Matt Clifford· Co-founder & Non-Executive Chair, Entrepreneur First
Reid Hoffman· Investor & Board Member, Entrepreneur First; Co-founder of LinkedIn, Partner at Greylock
Rachel Zimmer· Partner & GM, Toronto, Entrepreneur First
Coralie Chaufour· Partner & GM, Paris, Entrepreneur First
Bernadette Cho· Partner & GM, Singapore, Entrepreneur First

How they likely show up

Long tenure as co-founder since 2011 (founding stage through unicorn) → thinks in decade-long arcs; unlikely to be moved by short-term market noise.
Moved from CPO to CEO of the same company → deep institutional knowledge, probably impatient with people who haven't done their homework on EF's model.
Three founded companies alongside the EF role (Code First: Girls, Peripheral Labs, plus EF itself) → high agency, runs parallel tracks, won't be satisfied with a single lane.
Prolific public speaker across Bloomberg, Slush, Invest Like the Best, Station F, and her own book/podcast → comfortable on stage and in media; expects substantive intellectual engagement, not flattery.
Writes a Substack and contributes to TechCrunch on co-founder dynamics and talent investing → her public voice is analytical and opinionated; she has formed views and will test whether you have too.
Bay Area relocation strategy for EF's founders (2024) and a $200M raise anchored by Stripe's Collisons and Eric Schmidt → operating at the intersection of European talent and US capital; geopolitical and market positioning is front of mind.

Conversation tips

→ Reference her 'Finding a Secret' talk at Slush 2023 or a specific Substack post — she'll know immediately whether you've read her work or are winging it.
→ Ask about the 2024 Bay Area relocation decision specifically — it's a major strategic bet she owns, and she'll have strong views on what changed and why.
→ Don't conflate EF with a typical accelerator — her core thesis is individual-first, pre-idea investing, and she has spent years articulating why that's different from YC; come in having understood the distinction.
→ Code First: Girls is a personal project as much as a strategic one — it's fine to ask about it, but treat it as a serious institution (250,000 women taught) rather than a side hustle or PR move.
→ She co-authored a book on what makes a good founder — if you're a founder or work with founders, come with a specific question about her framework rather than a generic 'what do you look for?'

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the July 2026 $200M raise and the Bay Area pivot — EF now requires pre-seed founders to relocate to SF, which has halved raise times and doubled valuations; that's a significant structural bet worth digging into.
Mention Peripheral Labs — she launched it in 2024 to build AI models that reconstruct live sports in photorealistic 3D, which is a pointed side-bet from someone whose day job is identifying extraordinary founders.
Reference her Slush 2023 talk 'Finding a Secret' or her Substack 'Starting up from Scratch' — she has a sustained public thesis about what separates real founders from pretenders, and engaging with the specifics signals you've done the work.

Discovery questions

The 2024 decision to move all pre-seed founders to the Bay Area was a big structural change — what made that the right moment to shift the model, and what did you have to give up to do it?
EF has now produced 600+ companies worth $11B+ in combined value — at that scale, how do you keep the individual-first thesis from getting diluted as the programme industrialises?
Code First: Girls has taught over 250,000 women to code — how do you think about its relationship to EF's talent pipeline, if at all, or are they deliberately separate projects?

Avoid

Don't treat EF as a variant of Y Combinator — she has spent over a decade building a distinct model around backing individuals before they have ideas or teams, and conflating the two will signal you haven't understood the core thesis.

Make it yours