Build your company with Antler India
We enable the most brilliant and determined founders by investing at the earliest stage, helping startups achieve product-market fit, and enabling global expansion in any category.
We are the global pre-seed partner for India’s top founders and iconic startups.
Global
We offer a launchpad, talent network, advisors, and investor access in several international geographies from Day 1. We are fundamentally global, with our platform spanning 5 continents and 300+ portfolio companies.
Pre-Seed
We are truly early in your startup journey as your first institutional backers. We invest in the range of $200k at the earliest stages and commit capital within 4 weeks - one of the shortest institutional funding cycles for a global fund in India.
Partner
We are founder-first. We create hands-on programs and provide personalized coaching for achieving product-market fit and accelerating growth. As partners, we provide continuous capital and support for the long term.
We put our founders first. We are ex-founders who have built their own startups from scratch; Day 0 to Scale.
We have been on both sides of the table.
As builders, we have created products used by millions of people, hired early core teams, and raised capital across different stages.
As investors, our India team has looked at over 6000 startups in the last decade, and funded 60+ companies across various stages, sectors, and geographies. We have seen multiple companies go to IPO, delivered sizable M&A outcomes and worked closely with nearly 40 startups in helping them raise further rounds of funding from some of the world’s marquee funds.
We have been partners to founders through the good, bad, and ugly. Beyond figuring out some levers of success, we have faced and mediated difficult calls such as co-founder disputes, major pivots, as well as personal and mental health challenges that all founders face in their journey.
We pride ourselves on having our founders’ backs. We will always remain founder-first because we were founders first.
Build with Antler India!
Who can apply?
Antler India is accepting applications from founders and founding teams tackling deep, ambitious problem statements.
All applications received by 10th October will receive a response before 21st October, 2021.
All applicants must have:(1) one strong idea with a unique insight and validation
(2) no prior institutional funding.
We accept founders at pre-product, MVP, and post-product stages.
For more details on eligibility, please check out our FAQ section.
Antler India Founders Platform and Program
The platform and program enable founders in their ‘0 to 1’ journey with a combination of hands-on personalized coaching, cohort-based learning, mentoring by top experts, institutional resources, follow-on funding, and a vast network of advisors, talent pool & investor access. The Antler Portfolio Platform particularly serves founders ‘building in India, for the world’ by leveraging its vast networks worldwide and facilitating global expansion in any category.
- Capital. We invest in the range of $200k at the earliest stages. We also reserve a significant portion of the Antler India fund to participate in future rounds.
- Tangible Impact on Product-Market Fit & Growth. We work with founders for 6 months to craft the roadmap, goals, and execution engines for product-market fit & growth. Founders have access to 1:1 partner meetings, personalized coaching, portfolio sessions led by functional experts, community initiatives and preferred partners (and talent pools for hiring) across design, product, and engineering.
- Fundraising Access & Support. We understand that fundraising is opaque and inefficient -- especially for early-stage founders who need to spend time building rather than raising. We help you navigate the VC ecosystem by crafting your story, opening the right doors, and negotiating the key terms that matter.
- Community. Founding a company is one of the most exciting but also loneliest paths to take. A founder community based on trust, sharing, and real personal development is perhaps one of the greatest ‘superpowers’ we can give to our founders.
- Partnership Mindset. Fundamentally, we believe that investors should always act with empathy first and create a safe environment for our founders to learn, fail and grow.
Please visit our FAQ for detailed queries on eligibility, and more. - Common mistakes in user research and idea validation
- In-depth product benchmarking and MVP iterations
- Key metrics for the first 100 days post product-launch
- Mentors and experts to bridge domain gaps
- We are building a founder community first. Founders come together to hold each other accountable for week-on-week progress and peer problem solving, shortening iterations from months to days.
- We get our hands dirty with expert-led workshops in areas underserved by the ecosystem: including design principles, no-code MVPs, metrics setting for product-market fit, and product-led growth.
- Startups are marathons, not sprints. We want to prepare you for the long haul, not just the near-term benchmark. We bring masterclasses with some of the best founders in India who have ‘gone the whole mile’ to share the building blocks of longevity - from culture to value-setting, from vision to the critical ingredients of founder personal growth and mental wellness.
Please visit our FAQ for detailed queries on eligibility, and more.
Antler India Portfolio Platform
Post-investment, founders advance to our Portfolio Platform. This is a 6-month period wherein teams engage with our partners, mentors, and global network to propel their startup to the next stage and prepare to raise their next round of capital.
Antler India’s Portfolio Platform involves deep and structured relationship-building with each of our investee companies -- designed bespoke for founders. Our goal is to prepare you for a significantly larger venture round and reach a critical milestone with your product and company.
Antler India Founders Program
Antler India Founders Program is a dedicated program for our portfolio founders to learn, build, share and accelerate. With a community-first approach, the program brings together founders to peer-problem-solve and learn from some of the best minds in the industry. The program is conducted over a period of a few weeks, remotely.
We believe that the highest impact for founders at the earliest stage is a combination of community, network, and shared learning.
Before we launched Antler India, we surveyed over 1,000 founders and identified key need-gaps at the earliest stage:
Our Founders Program is designed specifically to address these needs:
Program Timeline
Antler India Portfolio Platform
Duration: 6 months
Weekly/ Fortnightly: 1:1 Partner Meeting, Peer Brainstorming, Portfolio Session by Domain Experts, Dedicated Mentors
Founders will typically spend 1-3 hours a week with our team and platform resources, all of which is tailored to the personalized requirements of their startups.
Antler India Founders Program
Duration: 3-4 weeks
The program is a short, value-packed module that will bring together a set of portfolio founders, for a cohort-based learning experience, supplemented by workshops, brainstorming sessions and peer-problem solving groups.
On need-basis: Build Sprints, Peer Feedback, Mentor / Network Access
Weekly: Dedicated Workshop, Founder Masterclass, Peer Brainstorming
Founders can choose to spend 4-5 hours a week on dedicated Antler programming. The rest of the time will be spent on building, user research, product, or other aspects, as per each startup’s need.
The program will cover key aspects of early-stage company building across User research and continuous validation, Product, Engineering, Sales and Growth Marketing, and Decoding culture, value and vision.
Key Dates
Applications are now open.
All applications received by 10th October will receive a response before 21st October, 2021.