The Collison brothers, who co-founded Stripe, join Entrepreneur First as investors.

Entrepreneur First, the UK-based VC firm run like a startup, has raised a $158 million Series C round at a valuation of $560 million. Known for its unorthodox (but highly successful) approach to selecting founders to back, Entrepreneur First’s portfolio covering over 500 companies has already generated over $10 billion in value.

Entrepreneur First encourages innovation and ideas, and it’s possible it may back a founder without even a startup in place. It matches together founders, or would-be founders, with other like-minded visionaries, with potential access to a global network of founders, advisors, and investors. Typically, an EF cohort runs for six months of which three months are for ideating and finding a co-founder; the other three months are to set up a pitch for external investors.

And the results from this seemingly hodgepodge method have been outstanding, as stated above.

Good enough to attract backing in Round C from an alliance of technology leaders, including Patrick Collison and John Collison (co-founders of Stripe); Tom Blomfield (Monzo and GoCardless); Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn and PayPal); Matt Mullenweg (WordPress); and Nat Friedman (GitHub).

According to Tech Crunch, about $100 million from the current raise would go to continuing investments in startups and entrepreneurs.

EF will take its successful recipe to Web3 in Autumn of 2022 when it will launch the first cohort of its new platform, Entrepreneur First Web3, in partnership with the Tezos Foundation.

It is also developing a tool, Form – a software for founders.

Related Story: Truist To Fund $120M For Black, Latinx And Women-Owned Businesses