Ex-Starmer adviser's start-ups backer nears £1bn valuation

An incubator of exertion start-ups co-founded by Sir Keir Starmer's erstwhile artificial quality advisor is closing successful connected a £1bn valuation aft securing caller capitalist backing.

Sky News has learnt that Entrepreneurs First (EF) is successful the process of raising astir $120m from a syndicate of caller and existing funders.

EF was jointly founded by Matt Clifford, who this twelvemonth spent six months helping signifier Downing Street's attack to AI, authoring its AI Opportunities Action Plan.

Mr Clifford, who stepped down from that relation for idiosyncratic reasons, is besides seat of the government's precocious probe agency, ARIA.

Sources said that EF had notified investors successful caller weeks that it had secured a $75m committedness from Transpose Platform, 1 of its existing investors, arsenic portion of the broader backing round.

New backers, according to radical briefed connected the plans, see Japan Post Bank and the California Public Employees Retirement System, 1 of the world's astir almighty pension money investors.

The Series D backing circular volition cement EF's presumption arsenic a lynchpin of Britain's start-up economy.

EF has backed hundreds of companies, including the fintech unicorn Cleo and security claims processor Tractable.

The steadfast is tally by main enforcement Alice Bentinck, who co-founded it with Mr Clifford successful 2011.

In effect to an enquiry from Sky News, EF declined to comment.