Entrepreneur First Formally Unveils Second-Singapore Startup Cohort at Investor Day 2018


Global startup builder Entrepreneur First (EF) has officially announced its second cohort of startups at its bi-annual Investor Day in Singapore. EF was founded by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck in London. Since 2011, Entrepreneur First has worked with over four hundred individuals and has produced one hundred startups which are now worth more than US$1 billion. 

The company builder expanded to Singapore in 2016 after an anchor investment from SGInnovate, the Singapore government’s investment programme that supports deep tech startups. Its inaugural Investor Day in March 2017 debuted its first cohort of twelve startups, including Transcelestial Technologies and MicroSec. One year on, all twelve have been offered term sheets and funding from venture capital firms such as Cocoon Capital, Wavemaker and  SGInnovate.

At its Investor Day on January 16 2018, fourteen teams took to the stage at Google’s Singapore headquarters to pitch to an audience of angel investors, venture capitalists and other prominent figures in the Asian tech scene. The latest cohort of promising startups include See-Mode Technologies, Hertzwell and TransferFi. 

“Investor Day 2018 comes as the end of a long and meaningful journey for everyone involved” said, Alice Bentinck, Co-Founder of EF. “What you saw today was a collection of visionary individuals with extraordinary ambitions. We’re very proud to have worked with them over the last six months, helping them build their companies,  and are delighted to be unveiling such an ambitious cohort as we mark our second successful year in Singapore.”

Alex Crompton, Director of EF Singapore, added: “They joined us as strangers six months ago, without teams or fully fledged ideas, and now join our global community as leaders and visionaries for a better future. We’re immensely proud of their commercial potential and we look forward to their contributions to Singapore's economy.”

EF’s entrepreneurship programme is touted as the ‘first of its kind’ in the world that accepts candidates pre-team and pre-ideas, with individuals selected purely based on their skills and domain expertise. Their focus is to help inidviduals find a co-founder, develop a commercially viable idea, and build a company from scratch.

EF’s Singapore programme comprises two three-month phases. During the first three months, each participant receives a monthly stipend of S$5,000, and focuses on finding a co-founder and developing a commercially viable idea. Should a startup be successfully formed after the first phase, EF will invest a further S$25,000 for an 8 percent equity stake. In the second phase, teams will focus on product development and customer traction. In addition to pre-seed funding, mentoring and advice from the EF team and top entrepreneurs, EF also provides work spaces, legal and administrative support. 

Lining up its plans for the future, EF will continue to guide the second cohort startups through fundraising and hiring over the next six months. Concurrently, EF’s third cohort is set to commence on 29th January 2018 and registration for the fourth cohort is open as of 1st January 2018.  

 

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