Ahmet Bahadir Ozdemir, Airalo

Bahadir, CEO of Airalo, the world’s first and largest eSIM marketplace, couldn’t have asked for much more from 2025. In July the company he founded in 2019 received a $1 billion valuation – making it the first in the sector to hit unicorn status. 

He developed the idea for Airalo through his background in the maritime industry. Its success is a prime example of what happens when a business effectively solves a universal problem. In this case: how to stay connected when travelling. 

His business philosophy? Keep it simple. Drop the jargon. Don’t overinflate. And run your company with empathy. “I always like to say, Airalo has the vision of a unicorn, but the traditional metrics of a mama-papa shop,” he says. “We want to prove to the world you can be kind and you don't have to be greedy and you can still make it. You'll still succeed.”

‍Read our profile of Ahmet here: https://www.antler.co/portfolio/founder-stories/airalo

Kevin Damoa, Glid

Just like Bahadir, who identified a problem that needed solving through his time in the maritime industry, Kevin, CEO and co-founder of Glid, built his company on a lifetime of experience in logistics. From California firefighting to SpaceX to the US Military, Kevin knows all you need to know about getting things from A to B. 

It led him to found Glid – a last-mile logistics company that has designed a fleet of autonomous vehicles that can seamlessly transfer cargo from road to rail without human intervention. That was three years ago – in 2025 Kevin’s company has taken big leaps. It secured a $3.1m pre-seed round and was announced the winner of Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. Now it’s preparing to deploy its products in real-world settings and it’s gearing up for its first year of operations. 

‍Read our profile of Kevin here: https://www.antler.co/portfolio/founder-stories/glid

Peter Beckman, Treyd

For a founder with a true do-or-die philosophy, look no further than Peter, CEO and co-founder of Swedish startup Treyd. Before the company emerged from an Antler residency, Peter was spending his time building satellite data companies that were set to change the world, and throwing himself into extreme sports. When a speed-flying crash forced him to bow out of his existing projects he took some time to recover before deciding to roll the dice one more time on a new business. 

Treyd was launched in 2020, with co-founder and CTO Sameh El-Ansary. The company uses innovative finance to help SMEs scale their business without constraint; like a buy now pay later model for the supply chain. “Ultimately, we’re building a working capital automation platform,” says Peter. After a rollercoaster few years shaped by global economic shifts, the company has built a resilient foundation and tech layer and is gearing up for profitability. Treyd’s model could soon become a game changer for businesses globally. 

Read our profile of Peter here: https://www.antler.co/portfolio/founder-stories/treyd

LaTecia Johnson, INGENIUS Studio

For too long, tech solutions have failed to meet the needs of the marketing industry. “If all of these tools are coming to market,” says LaTecia, founder of INGENIUS Studio, “Why does literally every company that I go into have, you know, a couple of people running things out of a spreadsheet?”

LaTecia set out to build something better and in 2024, she founded INGENIUS. Dubbed the “creator economy OS” by Forbes, INGENIUS is an AI-powered platform that transforms the way marketing campaigns can be scaled and executed. It helps brands identify and quantify the value of influencers in their ecosystem; and enables creators to pitch for campaigns. With INGENIUS, a company can implement a campaign with a thousand influencers – days later it will know, to a 90% efficacy, whether the campaign was successful and which creators were effective. 

By mid 2025 – just 18 months from founding – the startup was hitting its stride. In the space of 90 days inbound demand grew five times. What INGENIUS offers, says LaTecia, is the ability to piece together disparate data and provide context in a way never before possible. “We quantify culture,” she says. 

Read our profile of LaTecia here: https://www.antler.co/portfolio/founder-stories/ingenius

Rama Afullo, Satlyt

Rama, founder of Satlyt, quit his job as a product engineer at SpaceX to pursue his vision for a new infrastructure to serve low earth orbit satellites, and tap into a market set to grow from $15bn to $108bn over the next decade. 

Satlyt is designed to reduce satellite dependency on ground stations, by building a decentralised network that means satellites can communicate between themselves from the edge. It’s a bold challenge to the vertically integrated ecosystems used by companies like SpaceX. Rama believes in a horizontal open-source system that is not just about improving space tech, but “democratizing” it. 

The startup has already been catching eyes from NASA – Satlyt was selected for the agency’s Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program – and was part of the latest intake for the Google AI infrastructure academy. Throughout 2025 Rama has been building the commercial profile of Satlyt; now he’s gearing up for his first launches. 

Read our full profile of Rama here: https://www.antler.co/portfolio/founder-stories/satlyt