Early Life 

Born in the New Forest region of southern England in 1986, Bentinck completed her basic education at Godolphin School, an all-girls boarding school in Salisbury, and enrolled at Nottingham University where she graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in management studies, achieving first class honors.

In 2008, Bentinck served as an intern at the Africa Governance Initiative before joining McKinsey & Company where she worked as a consultant for two years. This is where she met Matt Clifford who would become her business partner and the co-founder of Entrepreneur First. In other roles, Bentinck also served on the advisory board of Founders4Schools for two years and has been part of Imperial College’s computer science department’s industrial liaison board since 2015. 

Remarkable Investments

Entrepreneur First was founded by Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford in 2011 after they realized that there were not many real opportunities for bright and ambitious entrepreneurs to flourish in Europe. Based in London and Singapore, Entrepreneur First is a global talent investment program that has funded more than 1,200 individuals in 200 companies across Europe and Asia. In addition to headquarters in London and Singapore, the company has operational bases in Berlin, Paris, Bangalore, and Hong Kong. It is backed by some of the top investors in the world such as the founders of PayPal, LinkedIn, and DeepMind. 

Code First: Girls is a not-for-profit enterprise focused on bringing more women into the tech industry. Co-founded in 2012 by Alice Bentinck, Code First: Girls offers a free part-time course at 27 universities to females interested in learning how to code. 

Latest News

In February 2019, it was announced on TechCrunch, The Times, and several other media channels that Entrepreneur First would make a USD 115 million fund available to invest in the talents of 2,200 individuals across the globe over the following three years. This investment roughly translates into around 300 venture-backed companies and has been named as one of the biggest pre-seed funds raised. Investors behind the fund include the American venture capital company Trusted Insight as well as TransferWise founder Taavet Hinrikus, Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman, and Magic Pony Technology co-founder Rob Bishop. In April 2019, Entrepreneur Asia Pacific reported on Entrepreneur First’s efforts to help Asian startups grow internationally. According to Alice Bentinck, Asia has some of the top technical talent and education and has shown massive potential for growth. Going forward, Entrepreneur First aims to bring so-called bleeding edge technology companies to Asia with a fast-growing portfolio of superstars.