A window into progress: A look inside the world's day zero investor

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our content series—”It All Starts with People”—we spotlight the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Each story is a window into their passions, motivations, and vision—the reasons they are building and the positive dent they are aiming to make on the world.

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This time we sat down with Daniel Nguyen, an engineer turned McKinsey consultant, to talk about his journey and why he decided to build his company with Antler in Berlin.

Spain and Portugal have implemented fresh laws aiming to foster the expansion of their respective startup ecosystems. These legislations introduce novel approaches toward stock options, provide tax deductions for investors, offer corporate tax incentives, acknowledge crowdfunding as a viable financing option, and grant income tax exemptions.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our content series— "It All Starts with People"—we spotlight the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Each story is a window into their passions, motivations, and vision—the reasons they are building and the positive dent they are aiming to make in the world.
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This time we sat down with Charlotte Apperloo to talk about her journey and why she decided to build her company with Antler in Berlin.

Founding a startup can be an incredibly tough process for any entrepreneur, no matter the experience level. To provide some insight into the entrepreneurship process, Bernie Li, General Partner at Antler Canada speaks with Craig Major of Toronto Starts on his podcast, and sheds some light on his own journey, the concept of “founder empathy”, trials and tribulations on the path to success, and some helpful advice on how to get your startup started.

Silvain joined Antler after four years as a CTO at Sayduck, a Finnish company providing services for e-commerce and enhancing interactive shopping experience through displaying 3D products on their websites. Silvain helped to shape the company strategy and played a pivotal role during the acquisition of Sayduck by the Swedish Goodbye Kansas Group. However, he was missing a deeper sense of purpose as the company was “not solving any pressing issue” as he explained in our interview. Therefore, he decided to leave the company and started making the first steps toward building his own company. A company with a significant positive impact on the climate, planet, and people.

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However, this was harder than expected, and even though he met many talented people, there was always something missing – not the right match, timing, or diverse expectations. Struggling to find the right co-founder he joined Antler. Now, he and his co-founder René are building NeoCarbon and are on a mission to tackle climate change using Direct Air Capture.

Here's a sneak peek of some of the founders Antler Australia is working with, what they are up to, and the startups they want to build.

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The Antler residency is a unique opportunity to get together with 60+ other founders eager to build life-changing ventures. No matter how well you prep, it is impossible to be completely prepared for what can be truly transformational. The important thing is to be ready to fully immerse yourself, and take in everything you can during the experience. In this article, I’m outlining how to get the most out of the rollercoaster ride that is an Antler residency. As Co-Global Head of Program, having worked with 450+ founders during our eight latest residencies in Amsterdam, I have a few tips to share.

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life?

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Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit.

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In the fourth episode of Founder Files, Elif Hiz interviews Liza Akhvledziani, the CEO and co-founder of Chexy, a platform designed to help tenants pay rent online while earning rewards and building credit. As one of the first entrepreneurs that Antler Canada invested in, Liza highlights her experiences, struggles, and triumphs as a founder, and discusses her future ambitions. 

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life?

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Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit.

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In the third episode of Antler Canada's Founder Files, Elif Hiz interviews Justin Cuaresma, a founder in residence in our third residency. Justin is a Software Developer turned entrepreneur. He believes that the future of work is joyful. He bootstrapped CrowdParty, the “Netflix of workplace games,” and is now working on Delightful, a platform made for employees to foster deeper relationships through shared hobbies and interests!  In this video, we’ll dive into Justin's experience at Antler so far and his learnings from the first 7 weeks of the program.

Our content series "It All Starts with People" delves into the passions, motivations, and vision of the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Read the story of Carl Prins and his personal quest to help avert the climate crisis through Pathzero.

Nestled in the vibrant startup hub of Nairobi, Antler in Kenya brings together founders from all walks of life to build and invest in companies, tackling some of the most ambitious challenges in Africa. Sometimes that means starting from the very beginning—by lifting up young people in our region and providing them with the tools to drive the world forward. This time, through code. Find out about the incredible work done by Code Yetu, in partnership with Alphathesis and Antler in Kenya.

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Antler US works with founders starting from day zero, bringing them in-house to our Residency studios in Austin, Boulder, and New York City. After investment from Antler, our portfolio companies work with the Antler US team to unlock continued growth and scale. As partners at the earliest stage, we’re proud to showcase some of our US companies who’ve matured and are ready to raise their next round of funding.

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InspeCity is building propulsion and in-space servicing to enable space cities in the future.

Harry Truman once said: “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” The source of myriad mental and physical benefits, it’s no wonder highly successful entrepreneurs and business leaders frequently credit obsessive reading as instrumental to their outperformance. In honor of UNESCO World Book Day, Antler is excited to share books every founder should read in 2023.

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Antler, the world's day zero investor, has launched its first program in Iberia to provide funding, mentorship, and ongoing support to the exceptional founders building companies that will shape the world of tomorrow. The first cohort of Antler’s Iberian residency, which started in January 2023, includes 60 founders from 27 different geographies with a range of backgrounds and experiences.

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life?

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Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit.

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In this episode of Antler Canada's Founder Files, Elif Hiz interviews Zane Hengsperger, the youngest founder in residence in our third residency. Zane is currently working with 2 other founders from the cohort and building Blymp, a platform that will empower podcasters to secure relevant brand partnerships. In this article, we’ll dive into Zane’s experience at Antler so far and his learnings from the first 6 weeks of the program.

Michelle You is co-founder and CEO of Supercritical, one of the world's largest carbon removal marketplaces. But Supercritcal isn't the first startup Michelle has built and scaled. Before Supercritical, Michelle was co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Songkick, a company that helped fans discover concerts from their favorite artists. Songkick was backed by investors like YC, Index, Sequoia, Access and ultimately exited to Warner Music. 

Michelle shares how her experience at Songkick has influenced her approach to building Supercritical. We discuss the importance of user interviews, ascertaining key insights from customers, and how to structure an analytical decision making process. These are valuable, hard-earned lessons from a serial founder that you don't want to miss.

“Holidays are a way for you to enrich your own life. It's about going out and experiencing things that you otherwise wouldn't experience in your everyday life, trying new food, meeting new people, and just learning more about the world in a first-hand way.” —Sarah Hilmy, co-founder of travel platform Oddysee.

Our creator economy insights series—starting with our ultimate guide to the creator economy in May 2021—has tracked the explosion of a sector that upended the professional aspirations of the next generation. Today, as uncertainty and macroeconomic challenges pervade, how are creators pivoting and what does it mean for the sector's future?

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As the creator economy continues to grow, expand, and evolve, we've curated a list of 50 exciting leaders to watch in this space. Influencers. Journalists. Operators at prominent creator-related platforms. Founders. These are the players—seen and unseen—who underpin the global creator ecosystem.

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"The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination." —John H. Schaar

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Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our content series—”It All Starts with People”—we spotlight the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Each story is a window into their passions, motivations, and vision—the reasons they are building and the positive dent they are aiming to make on the world.

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This time we sat down with Stephen Scott to talk about why he decided to build his company with Antler in Berlin.

“People sometimes think the emotional and professional are conflicting, but what we believe is when people love their organization, the emotional value will actually make them productive. It will make them give their full self to the organization and make the organization grow for the long term.” —Sharon Li, co-founder and CEO of CHOYS

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life?

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Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit.

Swish Goswami is the co-founder and CEO of Surf, a startup that helps consumers monetize their digital footprints through the world’s first extension that passively rewards people for everyday browsing. Surf has raised over $4M to date and also provides first and zero party data to enterprises like Netflix, L’Oreal, United Talent Agency, and Electronic Arts.

In this episode of Early Days, Swish talks about his decision to drop out of the University of Toronto to work in startups, how he honed in on Surf’s ultimate value prop for brands and customers, and his thoughts on the future of consumer data privacy. Tyler grills Swish on how he recruited AAA+ talent to his team at such a young age and how he validated product-market fit with Surf's early (paying) customers.

Businesses born from the global financial crisis have been hugely successful. Explore why, and how founders should think about startups today.

Our baby, UpMarket, is already two months old. It’s been an incredible experience from the point I joined Antler as a founder, only a few months ago, to now being ready to go live with our product and first customer. In this article I will share my experience on the rollercoaster that started with an idea I originally came up with during dinner.

India's approach to unbundle payments made the world look up and take notice. Now it's time to disrupt commerce with the Open Network for Digital Commerce or ONDC. In our latest Theory of Next deep dive we mapped, researched, and reached out to every network participant live on ONDC right now.

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And we're excited to share with you a comprehensive what could be India's next unicorn catalyst with inputs from Vibhor Jain (COO of ONDC), Sujith Nair (Founding member of Beckn Protocol), and founders building on ONDC!

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Co-authored by Nitin Sharma (Partner, Antler) and Gokul Kumaravelu.

Entrepreneurship can be a challenging and rewarding journey, but it is not one that should be taken alone. A co-founder is an essential element in building a successful startup.

We’re thrilled to bring day zero investing to Munich as we open the doors of our new office and host our first founder residency in September 2023. After having been in the DACH ecosystem since 2021, it was clear that adding an office in Munich would only be a question of "when"-not "if".  

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Antler's new Munich office will plug right into this dynamic ecosystem and be well-positioned to support the next generation of entrepreneurs in Central Europe. We look forward to seeing what exciting new ventures emerge from this city!

At Antler, we believe anyone with enough determination and grit can build a great business. But we also know the startup ecosystem’s playing field is far from level. This International Women’s Day, we spoke with five women leaders at Antler about why embracing equity matters so much to our work, and what advice they have to be more inclusive in our everyday work and lives.

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It's 2023. Women should be able to pursue any career they choose and have an equal playing field to thrive in it.

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While we would like to believe this is true, the reality is very different.

“India has about 70 million unique women borrowers, which, to put it in context, is about a quarter of our households. Any ease of business here, any ease of credit here, any advancement here is our best shot at becoming a prosperous country.” —Neha Juneja, co-founder and CEO, IndiaP2P

Lessons from a founder who's done it

Alexis Aaron, co-founder of Sortd, recently shared her insights on gender bias within the industry, overcoming prevention questions, and how reframing the problem you’re solving for can win over different investors

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Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our content series—”It All Starts with People”—we spotlight the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Each story is a window into their passions, motivations, and vision—the reasons they are building and the positive dent they are aiming to make on the world.

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This time we sat down with Filippo Nigro to talk about his journey and why he decided to build his company with Antler in Berlin.

Cameo is the world's largest celebrity marketplace. With Cameo, you can access thousands of celebrities and request a personalized video message for any occasion from your favorite stars.

Arthur Leopold recognized the potential of selfies becoming the new autographs. He quickly joined Cameo as the first employee (COO) and invested in the startup's friends and family round. Arthur spent over 5.5 years with Cameo, serving as President through January 2023. While Arthur recently stepped down as President to start his own company, he remains a Senior Advisor and an ardent supporter of the team.

We recorded this podcast while Arthur was Cameo's acting President. In this episode of Early Days, Arthur talks about the first Cameo that started it all, combatting the chicken-egg problem in marketplaces, finding near instantaneous product-market fit with fans, and Cameo's distinctive celebrity acquisition strategy.

Have you ever had an idea for a really awesome product, but you get stuck because you don't know how to write code? Well, today's guest, Emmanuel Straschnov, is solving that problem as the founder and CEO of Bubble.io. Emmanuel and his co-founder, Josh, wanted to put the ability to write software at the fingertips of the entire world. In 2012, they started Bubble, and set out to build a no-code platform that equips anyone to write beautiful software. Listen to this episode of Early Days to learn how Emmanuel and Josh bootstrapped for seven years before taking external capital, building Bubble into a unicorn in the process.

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Our content series "It All Starts with People" delves into the passions, motivations, and vision of the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Bringing a clarity of vision to our latest spotlight is Piet Hein van Dam, co-founder of Clear, the award-winning digital self-help tool for diabetes patients.

How Antler works with & invests in startups in Australia

Four years and one Fund on, a lot has changed at Antler Australia.

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In this new series, the global early-stage VC reveals how it's working with founders from day zero, path to its first 100 Australian investments, introduces two new Partners, and announces some of the best terms for founders in the country.

A team from the Antler India Fellowship cohort, Cattle Guru is building a one-stop shop for Bharat farmers.

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We are thrilled to back 16-year-old Tejas Ravishankar as he builds a robust productivity and experience platform for open-source developers.

Despite growing calls to create a more inclusive venture capital ecosystem and remove the barriers to entrepreneurship, only a fraction of funding is raised by founders from underrepresented communities.

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The first step towards change is quantifying the challenge. While in-depth research has been conducted about women founders and founders from ethnic minority backgrounds, data has never existed about tech founders from the LGBTQ+ community—until now.

A look back at 2022, a record year for the leading day zero investor in Europe—showcasing investment activity and key predictions for the early-stage tech ecosystem in 2023.

Antler is proud to join forces with Microsoft for Startups to support rising entrepreneurs—starting with 23 non-dilutive grants to women founders in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and North America—and reduce the barriers to startup success. Meet some of these founders.

Our content series—"It All Starts with People"—delves into the passions, motivations, and vision of the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. In our latest spotlight, we spoke with Tanika McLeod, one of the three co-founders behind MinuteSkill, a Toronto-based social micro-learning platform that uses bite-sized content and knowledge-sharing communities to empower the next generation.

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OnArrival is building simple, plug and play APIs that enable travel sellers (e.g. OTAs, corporate travel managers, travel agents, Airlines, hotels, etc.) bundle high-margin travel ancillaries (e.g. visa, insurance etc) in over a billion trips worldwide.

Antler's second annual ESG and Impact Report shares learnings on how VCs can focus on creating sustainable value from the outset, and celebrates our portfolio companies' work in this space.

Find out more into why we backed Novo, a Berlin-based company disrupting the energy renovation industry. NOVO automates analysis, planning, and financing of energy renovation for real estate, with the goal of decarbonizing homes and tackling climate change.

More than 25 operators at leading tech companies share their top predictions for the year ahead.

No matter what the macro-economic backdrop, there is no force greater—and more essential—than founders determined to make a positive dent in the world.

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A massive thank you to the entire global community—founders, advisors, investors, employees, and partners—who made the past year our best yet.

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Here’s a look back at our 2022.