How Antler helps founders go further, faster

The founder journey is lonely—but it does not need to be. 

When you join Antler, you tap into a global community of thinkers and builders dedicated to building something great. And you're supported by Antler team members, advisors, and investors, all of whom are laser-focused on maximizing your startup's success.

The Antler experience enables our companies to scale faster—from winning their first 100 customers and marketing a new product to raising their next round of funding. Let's take a closer look at the practical ways we support founders, from day zero to greatness:

One of the largest communities of early-stage founders

Antler’s global community of early-stage founders is one of the largest in the world. This ever-expanding group of peers also creates multiplier effects across our residencies and locations. Whether it’s couch surfing with other Antler founders in a country they are expanding to, introductions to investors, problem-solving with founders ahead of themselves in the journey, or sharing potential hires, Antler founders lean on and learn from one another.

Making virtual connections 

Our community channel, which includes founders, advisors, and Antler team members, has thousands of highly engaged users who can ask tricky questions and get a response from several founders within a few hours. 

Championing each other’s success 

The Antler community has helped many portfolio companies during their first product launches in places such as Product Hunt, with many of them topping lists with strong support from fellow founders.

World-class mentors

To help Antler founders be truly global from the outset, we founded the Antler Operator Network, a group of hundreds of world-class operators from leading technology companies based in 31 countries. The Operator Network comprises founders, CxOs, and VPs from fast-growing startups with hands-on experience building from scratch and scaling to thousands of users. 

These Operators help our portfolio companies move the needle by tackling their latest product, growth, and technology challenges. And they dive deeper to help founders solve more advanced challenges related to fundraising, managing a team, and hypergrowth. 

A global talent network

Knowing how essential people are to building a great company, we support founders as they scale their teams, whether it’s by making introductions, helping with recruitment, interviewing candidates, and more. 

All of our portfolio companies’ job openings are listed and amplified on our Antler website as well as via our internal Talent Network. The Antler Talent Network is an exclusive pool of vetted talent—an invite-only group of people looking for their next opportunity. It comprises select people from the 120,000 who apply to join Antler each year as well as founders who were part of an Antler residency and did not end up starting a company. 

A founder’s journey with Antler doesn’t end if they don't start a company or receive funding from Antler. Many join us to explore and validate an idea. If they realize through the process that the idea doesn’t have legs, some pivot to new ideas and others decide to join another company.

Antler founders have a home for life—no matter what direction their business or career takes.

The backing of industry leaders

Antler continues to forge new relationships and deepen existing partnerships with industry-leading corporations, technology providers, and other organizations who share our vision of supporting cutting-edge innovators who are making progress inevitable. 

Through these collaborations, our founders gain valuable company-building resources, insights and inspiration, introductions to prospective corporate customers, and opportunities to engage with global experts to aid their journeys. 

In turn, we are able to bridge industry players to an index of next-generation startups to accelerate innovation and commercialization among our partnering organizations. 

Some of Antler's industry partners

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At Antler, we back the world’s most driven founders, from day zero to greatness—including powerful support from our global community. So far, we have helped create and invested in more than 1,000 startups and we have the goal of backing more than 6,000 by 2030. Great things to come!

The most driven founders are joining Antler—the world's day zero investor—to solve important problems. Apply to one of our residencies in 27 cities around the world.