The Backdrop of Antler India's first AI Residency

With AI driving over 53% of all new billion-dollar companies in 2025 so far, we’re still only at the beginning of the AI era. This wave won’t be led by incremental tools — it will be shaped by breakthrough products, bold ideas, and founders building for billions. As the most active AI investor globally, and the leading backer of AI startups in India, Antler is launching the AI Residency — to support the next generation of AI-first companies emerging from the region.

Intensity at Inception - Move Faster

‍Significant Capital, Deployed Fast

We endeavour to back 60%+ of the startups from this cohort with capital designed for scale:

1. INR 4Cr in total investment
   • INR 2 Cr ($235K) for 9% equity
   • INR 2 Cr ($235K) on an uncapped SAFE with MFN
2. Funding decisions made in 4–6 weeks
3. Founders are supported with a one-time INR 2L grant to cover expenses (Powered by Hancock Prospecting)

Faster Investment Decisions

Our goal is to get you funded fast. We’ve shortened our residency, with investment decisions for pre-formed teams as early as Week 4.

$1M in AI-Relevant perks; $4M in total perks

Build - NVIDIA, Google Cloud, Perplexity, Microsoft, OpenAI, Stripe, Lovable, Anthropic, Supabase, MongoDB

Sell - Hubspot, Zendex, ZoomInfo, Intercom

Others - Atlassian, Notion, Slack, Linear, DevRev

‍Partner Till Greatness - Go Further

Potential $30M in Follow-On Capital

Our partnership doesn’t stop at the first cheque. We continue investing through Seed and Series A, with reserves via Antler Elevate for follow-ons up to Series C. We wrote the first $125K cheque into Airalo — and backed them through to becoming a unicorn - A total investment of USD 20 Mn.

A Global Founder Network

And from India,

• Navana AI, now scaling rapidly and has emerged as a category-defining player in India’s speech AI landscape. Read more about Navana here
• Figr uses AI to build a full-stack co-pilot for end-to-end design work, from research to coding
• Storefox.ai is pioneering Offline Retail Observability with AI enabling brands and QSRs to remotely monitor customer experience
• Alt Fashion - AI-powered fashion search with the largest real time catalog of 250+ top brands

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Antler Embark: Deep US GTM Immersion for Antler-Backed Startups

Embark is Antler’s dedicated post-investment initiative to support pre-seed to seed-stage startups expanding from India and Southeast Asia to the US.

Beyond generic talk or demo days, Embark is designed to help a founder land in the US, and compress the typical 18-24 months of learning and network-building in 6 months, to actually get traction in the US market.

In its first edition, 19 Antler-backed founders spent a high-intensity month in the Bay Area, working from a shared space. They engaged deeply in 40+ meetings with top-tier founders, operators, community connectors and diaspora VCs who shared their lessons and mistakes in US PMF, GTM and adapting to life as a cross-border founder.

After the intense month of orienting, founders begin their US journey with dozens of warm connections and a close-knit community to tap into.

Over a 3-4 month timeframe, Embark also facilitates bespoke customer and advisor introductions for every single company

Once US traction is achieved, fundraising from US investors can a far more viable option.

Designed for Today's AI Builders

Who should Apply?

The program targets exceptional founding teams building promising AI solutions. Ideal candidates are:

• Strong teams committed full-time; actively experimenting with users to sharpen MVP clarity
• Available to join full-time in Bangalore in first 2.5-weeks of the Residency only (August 21 to September 5, 2025)

Program Structure: AI Residency

Our goal is to help you unlock early inflection and connect you to the best learnings from the world’s fastest growing AI-native startups. For a brief duration, you will work in an intense environment with ~15 other top-notch AI-native or AI-first teams in Bangalore - setting ambitious goals and feeding off the collective energy to move faster than you could have imagined in a compressed Residency timeline of 4 weeks.Each week (1-4) is strategically designed around key phases. The programming will include focused workshops and guest speakers (India + US-India corridor) covering:

Finding AI Product-Market Fit (AI-PMF): What is working for the fastest growing AI startups in the world (incl. insights from Antler companies like Lovable) - practical strategies to quickly test, iterate, and find your niche

Starting with the Right AI Technical Foundations: Master critical early decisions: from prototypes and code generation tools, selecting the optimal inference and training stack, running evaluations, efficient data acquisition, to hiring your first key technical hires.‍

Go-To-Market (GTM) for B2C and B2B AI Products: How to think about distribution as the wedge in the AI world? Conducting impactful early experiments and learning from the best early playbooks globally—including innovative outcome-based pricing models.

Building a Global AI company from Day One: For founders attacking a global market, top insights from our deep immersion (Antler Embark) which included 40 sessions with leading operators and investors

Timeless Principles on Company and Institution building: Hear from seasoned founders and operators on what it takes to build generational companies - not just products. Antler Residencies have hosted more than 100 leading speakers who have been there, done that.

Venture Scalability in the AI World: How to think about your capital roadmap and fundraising timelines differently in an AI world

Personalized Guidance (Partner Office Hours & Weekly 1:1s)

Tailored mentorship from your friendly sounding boards who will help you ensure clarity, accountability, and rapid progress.

Investment Readiness: The Final Sprint

Prepares teams for the investment process. Founders polish their story, tighten their metrics, and run through mock ICs and VC conversations. Exit the program investment-ready, with compelling clarity and conviction about your product, market, and personal capability to scale

Note: 80-90% of your time during the Residency will still be spent on your own deep work on product building and iterating with customers - not in a classroom.

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Duration: Starting on August 21, 2025 for ~4-6 weeks

Commitment in-person in Bangalore: August 21 to September 5, 2025

Investment Decisions: Before September End, 2025

Last Date to Apply: August 13, 2025

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Visit the Antler India Website to learn more about our General Residency Track, Portfolio Companies, Investor Partners, Team and more.