HOW WE BUILT ANTLER

For a while I've been eager to share more about how and why Antler was built, our mission, and our vision for the future—driven by our commitment to being a strong partner to the world's top founders, wherever they are. There's a tremendous amount of opportunities for great people to innovate and more and more talent across the globe wants to build companies.

Before joining Antler, I had the privilege of contributing to the growth of one of Southeast Asia's most successful tech companies, Zalora.com. While Zalora achieved remarkable success as a business, one of the most inspiring outcomes was witnessing how many of our colleagues took their experiences from building Zalora to create some of the region's most exciting new ventures. These include companies like GoTo (Indonesia’s largest superapp, which IPOed at a 38 billion USD valuation in 2022), Shopee (Southeast Asia’s leading e-commerce platform), StashAway, ShopBack, Ora, Locad, and many others. 

In early 2018, we set out to launch Antler with a clear focus: to support founders from the very beginning—the inception stage of their ideas and teams. Our approach was inspired by the challenges we had observed in getting startups off the ground, both in established hubs and emerging ecosystems. Finding a co-founder, refining an initial idea, and gaining early traction are prerequisites for 99% of investors, yet these steps are incredibly challenging to navigate alone without a supportive ecosystem.

We made the decision to back founders from Day Zero—investing in people before they’ve even started building their businesses. This strategy allows us to identify and empower exceptional talent where they receive the least support: at the critical foundation stage of their startups.

Each week, we reached out to hundreds of talented individuals across Singapore and the surrounding region, starting with those in our own networks—friends from college, former colleagues, and people with a track record of building remarkable companies. We organized coffee chats, hosted information sessions both in-person and online, and actively participated in numerous ecosystem events. Our early days were entirely focused on meeting and interviewing potential founders, and once they joined our residencies, we dedicated ourselves to coaching and supporting them as they began their entrepreneurial journeys.

Guided by our belief that exceptional founders can come from anywhere, we engaged with people across all ages, demographics, and professional backgrounds. During those months, nearly everyone on the team lost their voice at some point, but the effort paid off: in July 2018, we welcomed 65 founders to Antler in Singapore. This diverse group included individuals in their early 20s and late 50s, ranging from seasoned serial entrepreneurs to first-time founders venturing into the startup world, many with deep domain expertise.

We poured our energy into helping these founders navigate the critical early stages of their journeys and refine their ideas. Just three months later, we made our first investments. Many of these startups have since grown into industry leaders, such as Staff Inc.—our first investment—which has become Indonesia's leading outsourcing and workforce solutions platform, empowering millions of agents.

Now—165 residencies later—we have significantly enhanced our ability to support exceptional founders. With each cohort in every market, we gather feedback, learn from the experience, and refine how we deliver value to aspiring entrepreneurs. The number of applications we receive has tripled since 2021, with over 160,000 founders applying each year, creating an incredible funnel of talent.

While we wish we could back more of these applicants, we remain highly selective—now more than ever. In 2021, we invested in just over four founders for every thousand applications. Today, that figure has become even more discerning, with fewer than three founders out of every thousand applicants receiving our support.

We have significantly expanded our global presence, doubling our footprint to 27 locations and growing our team by nearly 50% since 2021. This growth equips us to navigate the unique complexities of each market effectively. Simultaneously, the total value of our portfolio has more than doubled, reflecting the impact of our investments and the success of our founders.

Since the end of 2021, our assets under management (AUM) have nearly tripled, marking a significant increase in the capital entrusted to us. We’ve grown from just over $300 million USD in AUM at the close of 2021 to ~1 billion USD today. Similarly, the number of investments we’ve made has more than quadrupled, rising from over 300 to more than 1,400. This momentum has earned us repeated recognition at the top of PitchBook’s leaderboard as the most active seed-stage investor—a testament to the scale and impact of our work.

This growth has attracted increasing interest from institutional investors, enabling us to partner with prominent names such as EIFO (the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark), the International Finance Corporation, Korea Venture Investment Corporation, Investinor, Norfund, Schroders, Molten Ventures (formerly Draper Esprit), Fintech Collective, Macquarie, Phoenix Group, Canica, and Ferd. Their support underscores the strength of our mission and the trust in our approach to backing exceptional founders.

The best time to invest in new founders is often immediately after a peak, making today’s challenging VC environment a significant opportunity for Antler. History shows that economic downturns often serve as a catalyst for innovation—one in three Fortune 500 companies was founded during a recession. Notable examples include Airbnb, Slack, Uber, Stripe, and Pinterest, all launched during or shortly after the 2008 financial crisis. Similarly, Salesforce, PayPal, and Netflix thrived in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble. We are confident that our recent cohorts from 2022, 2023, and 2024 will follow this trend, proving their resilience and capacity to achieve remarkable success in tough times.

All of this progress occurred while the so-called "VC winter" dominated headlines. Despite challenging market conditions, we have continued to perform and grow. We've shown resilience, achieving expansion across every dimension—AUM, investments, locations, and team size—demonstrating our ability to thrive even in a tougher venture capital environment.

Over time, Antler has built a global infrastructure that fosters network effects across our platform. We've discovered that the most effective investment model is one that actively removes barriers to entrepreneurship. By creating a global platform, we've enabled diverse founders from around the world to connect, access shared resources, and grow their ventures collaboratively.

Looking ahead, I’ve asked our Partners across all locations to highlight the initiatives they are most passionate about. Together, we’ve made a series of commitments to support local ecosystems, identify the most impactful solutions, and maintain a robust, distributed global presence.

These include:

• Scaling Funds to Back More Founders: We are creating larger funds that enable us to invest in more founders and provide continued follow-on investments as companies progress through their lifecycle.
• Expanding Our Hub-and-Spoke Model: By strengthening teams in major hubs while maintaining a presence in regional cities, we can increase our geographical reach and support more founders globally. This model allows us to provide localized support while leveraging the resources of larger, central hubs.
• Strategic Market Entry: We carefully select new office locations that enhance our overall strength. Each new market we enter is aligned with our strategy to offer greater value to founders through strong hubs and closely integrated satellite offices.
• Innovative Financial Instruments: We’ve introduced tools like Antler’s Agreement for Rolling Capital (ARC), which allows us to commit additional guaranteed investments beyond our initial funding, ensuring robust support for startups through their pre-seed rounds.
• Advancing Technology Capabilities: We are developing sophisticated technological tools to empower our Partners and founders, streamlining operations and amplifying the impact of our platform.

The future will undoubtedly present new opportunities and challenges. As we expand our team and adapt to an ever-evolving landscape, I am confident that we will not only sustain our momentum but also achieve milestones that once seemed beyond reach when we first embarked on this journey with Antler.