MAKING PROGRESS
INEVITABLE
Antler is the investor backing the world’s most driven founders, from day zero to greatness.
MAKING PROGRESS
Founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future, Antler partners with exceptional founders across six continents to launch and scale startups that address meaningful opportunities and challenges.
Knowing that exceptional founders can come from anywhere with any background, we have offices in 25 cities across six continents, including Austin, New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Bangalore, Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, and Sydney.
Our global community of builders, investors, operators, experts, and partner organizations backs people from the very start of their founder journey—pre-team or even pre-idea. Since 2018, we have helped create and invested in more than 600 startups across a wide range of industries and technologies, with the goal of backing more than 6,000 by 2030.
A better future will not happen automatically—the world needs determined, ambitious, and resilient founders to build it. We are committed to supporting them and pursuing our vision of making progress inevitable.
THE PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE US
Founders first
We obsess about making our founders successful
Build our people
By developing each other, we build leaders that define the future
100% ownership
No excuses—own up and get it done
Best idea wins
We are a meritocracy—the idea matters, not who had it
Don’t tread water
Move fast and deliver high-quality results
Disagree and commit
We can debate fiercely—but when the decision is made, we commit and execute
Uncomfortably ambitious
We set improbable goals and meet them
Do more with less
Any cent spent is spent on the right thing
Give back
It’s not a zero-sum game—when all give back, all receive more
Our leadership
The Antler leadership team consists of serial entrepreneurs, experienced operators and seasoned investors.
James Anderson is the co-manager of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust at Baillie Gifford. Anderson joined Baillie Gifford, which oversees about $450 billion, in 1983 and became a partner four years later. He led the firm’s European equity team and later co-founded its long-term global growth strategy. Anderson also chaired Baillie Gifford’s international growth portfolio construction group from its inception in 2003 until 2019, and pioneered the firm’s investments in non-public companies.
Tyler is a business development specialist and entrepreneur with a strong focus on the growth and geographic expansion of early stage companies. With close to a decade of experience under his belt, Tyler prominently lead the rollout of a comprehensive marketplace business model across over 10 countries in Southeast Asia for both Zalora and Global Fashion Group (GFG). The former Head of Business Development at GFG also spearheaded one of the largest private e-commerce acquisitions to-date involving India’s e-commerce fashion site, Jabong.
Jeff is a sales leader and investor. Over a nine year run at LinkedIn, Jeff held a series of roles launching new business units and leading sales teams to best-in-company performances as the business grew to 770 million members and $10B in revenue. Separately, Jeff launched his own company, Earhoox, scaling it across the globe. He is also an active angel investor focused on health, wealth, and happiness. Before coming to Antler, he was a General Partner at Forum Ventures, focused on early stage B2B SaaS.
Ryan is an entrepreneur and business development professional that has built and scaled ventures in the financial services, apparel, technology, and food/beverage spaces. For the past few years, he has focused on simultaneously growing a financial services start-up and a nonprofit organization that provides pro-bono services to empower lower-income entrepreneurs. He brings experience spanning the start-up ecosystem to Antler's founders where he will be focused on building Antler in the US.
Bernie combines his experience as a founder and investor to support entrepreneurs. He co-founded a technology based startup in the solar sector that grew from its homebase in Toronto, to over two hundred employees with an additional office in San Francisco, serving customers across the USA and Ontario. That company was VC backed and had a successful exit to a NYSE-listed acquirer. His experience as an investor includes working with premier VC funds, in addition to angel investing. Helping entrepreneurs think about value creation and building relationships with the capital markets are ways that Bernie enjoys working with founders.
Naman has founded and exited 3 travel technology businesses. He has built original small teams from inception and growing them to over 700 people. His companies were able to grow with great people building great products using technology. Developing people, products and technology to rapidly scale business and leading to successful financial exits for investors are the skills and experience Naman brings to Antler Canada.
20+ years experience in tech investing, business building and digital transformation projects. Operating Partner for Redpoint eventures, Intel Capital LATAM director for over a decade and Innovation Director of public traded companies. Recognised digital advisor and board member.
FAQs
What does day zero investing mean?
Day zero investing means backing founders from the very beginning—whether it’s pre-team or even pre-idea—and continuing to support them on their company’s journey to greatness. We are there when a founder is at the starting line, when everything is possible and nothing is certain. When they have made the life-changing decision to take the leap and build a company, leaving conventional career paths behind. When their belief, passion, and drive are often the only things fueling them. And we are still there after we make our first investment, as a long-term partner providing advice, introductions, resources, and follow-on funding—all the way to their exit.
Who is part of Antler’s global community?
Our global community includes founders, investors, operators, experts, and partner organizations across six continents. Antler founders scale faster—from winning their first 100 customers and marketing a new product to raising their next round of funding—with the backing of 5,000+ fellow Antler founders across six continents. They learn from the best in the business through our advisor network of 600 leading operators, our sector-focused communities, and our monthly socials across our locations. And they are powered by curated people and resources for hiring, going to market, and fundraising, along with perks from leading tech providers. Antler founders have a home with us for life—no matter what direction their business or career takes, we’re committed to winning together.
Is Antler an accelerator or incubator?
We are not an accelerator or incubator, we’re the day zero investor. While we take huge pride in helping our founders develop, validate, and start scaling their idea and business model in a short period of time through our residencies around the world, we don’t launch and leave. We keep supporting our founders for the full life cycle of their company—from day zero to greatness.
What is Antler’s investment philosophy?
Above all, we invest in people. We believe that every great company starts with a great team—and the strongest teams pursue the best ideas. Working with thousands of founders around the world, we have found that an amazing team with a mediocre idea in most cases will outperform a mediocre team with a great idea. And great teams will often pivot their idea after finding a more pressing or interesting problem to solve. If we decide to invest, it is first and foremost because we have high conviction that the team we are backing will be future winners and because we can and want to work with the team. Read our full investment philosophy.
