Matt Clifford

Background

Matthew Philip Clifford CBE (born November 1985) is a British entrepreneur, investor, author, and AI policy adviser ¹². He holds degrees from Cambridge and MIT, where he was a Kennedy Scholar ³⁴.

Clifford began his career at McKinsey & Company as a management consultant ³⁴. In 2011, he co-founded Entrepreneurs First (EF) with Alice Bentinck, a talent investor and startup incubator that funds individuals before they have a company or co-founder ¹². EF’s model — which Clifford calls “talent investing” — identifies exceptional individuals, helps them find co-founders, develop ideas, and raise initial funding ⁵. EF has supported the creation of over 600 companies across 19 countries with a combined portfolio valuation exceeding $16 billion ⁶⁷.

Clifford served as CEO of Entrepreneurs First from its founding until December 2023, when he handed the CEO role to co-founder Alice Bentinck to focus on AI policy ¹⁸. In April 2026, he transitioned further to a non-executive chair role, dedicating one day per week to EF ⁸. In March 2026, EF raised $200 million in fresh capital, reaching a $1.3 billion valuation ⁶.

Beyond EF, Clifford has held significant public service roles. He was appointed Chair of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), a £1.4 billion body for funding breakthrough R&D modeled on DARPA ²³. In 2023, he helped design the UK Frontier AI Taskforce and led preparations for the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park as the Prime Minister’s Representative, where 29 nations signed a declaration on AI safety ²⁹. In January 2025, the Prime Minister appointed him as AI Opportunities Adviser, a role he held until stepping down in June 2025 for family reasons ¹². He also serves as Vice Chair of the UK AI Safety Institute Advisory Board ³¹⁰.

Clifford co-founded Code First: Girls with Alice Bentinck, an organisation aimed at closing the tech gender gap ²³. He co-authored How to Be a Founder with Bentinck, which won 2023 Startup Book of the Year ³⁴. He was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to business and a CBE in 2024 for services to AI ²³. He was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI in 2024 ³⁹.

Stated Thesis

Clifford publicly describes EF’s approach as “talent investing” — identifying and funding exceptional individuals before they have a company, purely on the basis of who they are ⁵¹¹. EF’s stated mission is to “make companies happen that otherwise wouldn’t exist” by increasing the supply of great entrepreneurs globally ¹¹¹².

Clifford has stated that EF looks for what he calls “edge” — a personal competitive advantage rooted in a founder’s background, skills, or deep expertise that could form the foundation of a plausible startup ¹¹¹². He has publicly argued that “intelligence is overrated for founders,” emphasizing instead the ability to understand group dynamics, exercise leadership, and demonstrate resilience ⁵¹³.

EF’s stated thesis focuses on backing talent at the earliest possible stage — before team formation, before any idea exists. Clifford has described the EF model as deliberately lowering social friction to co-founding, stating that “a failed team at EF might last 48 hours” ¹³. The firm states it seeks to back founders across AI, deep tech, fintech, healthcare, and climate technology sectors globally ⁷.

Clifford’s personal angel investments appear focused on UK-based deep tech and climate tech companies, with declared interests spanning quantum computing, defense AI, greentech, and enterprise software ¹⁰¹⁴.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 48 verified EF portfolio companies from the EF portfolio page and 16 verified personal angel investments from UK government declarations and press reports, the following patterns emerge.

EF Portfolio — Sector Distribution (48 companies): - AI and enterprise software: 15 of 48 (31%) — including Tractable, PolyAI, Faculty, Mimica, Hadean, Chattermill, Flexciton, nPlan, Genie AI, CloudNC, Limbic, Omnea, Kular, Scarlet, Unitary - Climate and energy: 8 of 48 (17%) — including Alcemy, VFlowTech, Green Li-ion, Better Dairy, Open Cosmos, La Vie, Faircraft, Genomines - Fintech and insurtech: 5 of 48 (10%) — including Cleo, Credit Kudos, Merkle Science, Intropic, Tuza - Healthcare and biotech: 6 of 48 (13%) — including Accurx, Kheiron Medical, Ochre Bio, Phagos, Spore.Bio, Finni Health - Web3 and crypto: 3 of 48 (6%) — Aztec, Gensyn, Merkle Science - Industrial and manufacturing: 5 of 48 (10%) — Automata, Converge, CloudNC, Flexciton, Neptune Robotics - Other (edtech, food, aerospace, HR, privacy): 6 of 48 (13%)

EF Portfolio — Geographic Distribution (48 companies): - London: 37 of 48 (77%) - Paris: 5 of 48 (10%) - Singapore: 4 of 48 (8%) - Other (Hong Kong, Toronto, San Francisco): 3 of 48 (6%)

The London concentration is stark. Despite EF’s global expansion to six cities, the most successful portfolio companies are overwhelmingly London-headquartered. Since 2024, EF has shifted strategy, requiring newly backed startups to relocate to the Bay Area for fundraising and scaling ⁶.

EF Portfolio — Stage Distribution: EF invests exclusively at the pre-seed/pre-company stage, providing initial funding to individuals before they have formed a team or developed an idea ⁵. Follow-on investments by EF are not standard; the portfolio companies are then funded by external VCs at seed and beyond. Notable later-stage investors in EF alumni include SoftBank Vision Fund (Tractable, Permutive), a16z (Aztec, Gensyn), Khosla Ventures (Ochre Bio), and Hedosophia (PolyAI) ⁷.

Personal Angel Investments — Sector Distribution (16 verified): - Climate and greentech: 4 of 16 (25%) — Sylvera, Puraffinity, Notpla, Patch Places - Deep tech (quantum, space, materials): 4 of 16 (25%) — Phasecraft, TRC Space, Unearthly Materials, Magdrive (via EF) - AI and software: 3 of 16 (19%) — Faculty Science (divested), Echobox, Honu AI - Defense and security: 2 of 16 (13%) — Helsing, Anzen Technologies - Fintech and enterprise: 3 of 16 (19%) — BondAval, Claimer, Stackfix

Notable Gaps: Clifford’s personal angel portfolio skews heavily toward deep tech, climate, and defense — sectors less prominently featured in EF’s portfolio marketing but aligned with his ARIA and UK government advisory roles. Consumer-facing startups are notably absent from his personal investments despite EF having backed several (Cleo, Nivoda, La Vie).

Co-investor Patterns (personal): Alice Bentinck frequently co-invests alongside Clifford in personal angel deals (e.g., Stackfix, Code First Girls) ¹⁵. Charlie Delingpole (ComplyAdvantage founder) also appears as a frequent co-investor ¹⁵. EF’s institutional backers — the Collison brothers, Reid Hoffman, Demis Hassabis — overlap significantly with the broader EF LP base ⁶.

Portfolio

Entrepreneurs First Portfolio Companies (selected)

Notable exits: Magic Pony Technology (acquired by Twitter, ~$150M, 2016) ¹⁶; Bloomsbury AI (acquired by Facebook, ~€26.5M, 2018) ¹⁶; Sonantic (acquired by Spotify, 2022) ⁷; Credit Kudos (acquired by Apple, 2022) ⁷; Trussle (acquired by Better Mortgage) ¹⁶.

Unicorn: Tractable (valued at $1B+, June 2021) ¹⁶.

Personal Angel Investments

Note: Years marked with ~ are approximate, based on company founding dates or declaration timing. Matt Clifford’s UK government declaration of interests lists 39 direct shareholdings, of which the above are independently verifiable ¹⁰. Many overlap with EF portfolio companies.

In Their Own Words

“Once we have identified the talent, our role is to create the environments, peer groups and standards that push exceptional people to operate at the edge of their capabilities.” — Matt Clifford, on EF’s $200M raise, BusinessWire/TechFundingNews, March 2026 ⁶

“The supply of founders is not fixed and the number one thing we can do is try and increase it by effectively providing environments that make it more legible, more acceptable, and more celebrated to be a founder.” — Matt Clifford, Moth Fund interview ¹³

“Your skill as a founder is developed by the act of getting started. It’s procedurally generated by the work that you do.” — Matt Clifford, Moth Fund interview ¹³

“The thing that turned out to work was to abandon any pretense that this is an analytical exercise and instead just lower the social friction to getting started and stop — a failed team at EF might last 48 hours.” — Matt Clifford, on EF’s co-founder matching model, Moth Fund interview ¹³

“I think intelligence is overrated for founders… the thing that nearly all of these people are also good at is sort of understanding group dynamics and power.” — Matt Clifford, World of DaaS podcast ⁵

“The Silicon Valley mantra is ‘don’t start a company with a stranger,’ but we found that helping strangers build co-founding relationships from scratch is a superpower.” — Matt Clifford, as reported in lessons summary ¹²

“Governments have protocols for communicating with each other, but until last year they didn’t have that for OpenAI and Anthropic.” — Matt Clifford, TIME100 AI profile, 2024 ⁹

“You don’t need decades of experience to build a technology startup. Your ability to become a founder is simply defined by the act of getting started.” — Matt Clifford, Entrepreneurs First website ⁴

What Founders Say

“Without Entrepreneurs First there would be no Sonantic, as I wouldn’t have met Zeena. Eternally grateful.” — John Flynn, co-founder of Sonantic (acquired by Spotify), Entrepreneurs First website ¹⁷

“We’ve gotten to a place in our careers that could have taken us 20 or 30 years in just 5, by simply deciding we didn’t want to wait. EF gives you that opportunity to accelerate your life and do what you really want to.” — Alex Dalyac, co-founder and CEO of Tractable (EF’s first unicorn), Entrepreneurs First website ¹⁸

“I have learned more through my three-month EF experience than my entire schooling career… I learned about my self-worth, how to have hard conversations and pushed my understanding of startups and entrepreneurship to another level.” — Tamir Shklaz, EF alumnus, Medium ¹⁹

“We walked into a meeting thinking $600K was the dream. Then, the investor looks us dead in the eyes and says, ‘That’s pocket change. How about $2M?’ This wasn’t just an eye-opener; it was an entire paradigm shift.” — Andrew Ologunebi, CEO and co-founder of Lottielab, GrowthMentor ²⁰

“One of the most valuable aspects of the EF program is its emphasis on validation.” — José Martín Quesada, CEO and co-founder of Krew, GrowthMentor ²⁰

Note: These testimonials describe the Entrepreneurs First program experience broadly. Clifford co-founded and led EF as CEO from 2011 to 2023 and remains chair. No independently sourced testimonials specifically about Clifford’s personal mentorship were found outside of EF’s own platform.

Connections

• Co-Founder, Entrepreneurs First — alongside Alice Bentinck (co-founder and CEO since 2023) ¹²
• Co-Founder, Code First: Girls — alongside Alice Bentinck ²³
• Chair, ARIA (UK Advanced Research and Invention Agency) — appointed alongside CEO Ilan Gur ²³
• Non-Executive Director, Accurx — UK healthcare software company, EF portfolio company ³¹⁰
• Non-Executive Director, Omnipresent — EF portfolio company ¹⁰
• Trustee, Kennedy Memorial Trust ³¹⁰
• Vice Chair, UK AI Safety Institute Advisory Board ³¹⁰
• AI Opportunities Adviser to the UK Prime Minister (January–June 2025) — worked with PM Keir Starmer ¹²
• PM’s Representative, AI Safety Summit (2023) — led preparations at Bletchley Park alongside Jonathan Black ²⁹
• Member, Investment Advisory Committee, Samos Investments ¹⁰
• EF LP relationships — Patrick and John Collison (Stripe), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Eric Schmidt, Nat Friedman (GitHub), Matt Mullenweg (WordPress), Tom Blomfield (Monzo), Sara Clemens (Twitch), Danny Rimer (Index Ventures), Matt Cohler, Charlie Songhurst, Aidan Gomez (Cohere), Barney Hussey-Yeo (Cleo) ⁶
• Co-author — How to Be a Founder with Alice Bentinck, foreword by Reid Hoffman ⁴
• Frequent co-investor — Alice Bentinck, Charlie Delingpole (ComplyAdvantage founder) ¹⁵
• Previous employer — McKinsey & Company ³⁴
• Speaking — World Economic Forum, TechCrunch, 20VC podcast (multiple appearances), Sifted podcast, World of DaaS, Invest Like the Best, 80,000 Hours ⁵²¹²²

Sources