Behind every successful company, there is a whole team of great minds. Having a strong co-founding team is key but having incredible early employees onboard can be equally important for a company's success at the very beginning. Finding the right early employees can be hard as oftentimes they need to have a certain mix of skills, as well as be go-getter, have an entrepreneurial mindset, and be willing to operate both on a strategic level and doa the groundwork. We built The Talent Network - to help our portfolio companies scout and hire the best talent from the very beginning.

Jordi Hays and Matt Jung, co-founders of Antler US portfolio company Likewise, know their way around e-commerce. Prior to Likewise, Jordi founded Branded Native, a creator ad network used by leading DTC brands. And over the span of fifteen years as a serial entrepreneur, Matt built companies in the consumer space like Wellen (acquired by Huckberry.com), Sonne Care, and Grover, while simultaneously consulting for Companion Medical (acq. by Medtronic), Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort, Esby Apparel, Fitness19, Western Rise, and FitScrubs, among others.

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Starting a company is a big deal. At Antler, we believe in empowering entrepreneurial talent with the right tools to make an impact on the world. Here's a snapshot of what we look for in prospective founders.

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The founders series takes a deep dive into the journey of Antler portfolio company founders and sheds light on the space they are building in. This month, we speak to Preet Gona and Alexis Zirah, co-founders of ARR Squared.

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After 2,000 registrations, the world tuned in to hear from 13 local portfolio companies

Antler US portfolio company Werkit, which connects high-growth software companies to remote self-managed teams, received the Covid-19 Innovation Award from the Smart City Expo World Congress today. The Covid-19 Innovation Award recognizes companies that have contributed to the successful transformation, adaption, or response of the world's cities to the pandemic. Werkit has connected workers in Zambia to remote digital jobs, digital banking services, skill advancement assistance, and a virtual community of support throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Antler opens its office in Berlin to strengthen the local start-up ecosystem, promising pre-seed investment at unprecedented scale.Partners of the fund covering Germany and Central Europe are Alan Poensgen and Dr. Christoph Klink.

A typical pre-seed to seed fundraising process consists of the following steps: defining fundraising targets & timing, mapping target investors & fundraising materials, having first intros and coffee meetings, pitching to multiple investors, and finally, negotiating and signing.

Antler US portfolio company Casting Depot, the professional network for media and entertainment, is emerging as the industry's premier marketplace for all facets of the talent booking process. Co-founders Lacey Kaelani and Brad Larson have led Casting Depot through a 446% month over month increase in talent user growth. The Casting Depot team is working with Antler to drive user traction and refine their product offering as they field casting calls from industry players like Netflix, HBOMax, Twitch, Bumble, Verizon, and MTV.

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Antler portfolio company Caria is the first AI-powered platform for women in menopause. To celebrate World Menopause day, they introduced Caria Premium Memberships last week. Co-founders Arfa Rehman and Scott Gorman collaborated with the Antler US team to build and refine this membership and launch several new features, which include a new digital behavioral health program and more advanced health tracking.

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In this episode, we speak to Anurag Srivastava, serial entrepreneur and founding partner of Jungle Ventures, Southeast Asia's largest independent venture capital firm. Over the last two decades, Anurag has played a crucial role in building and scaling companies in the tech and startup ecosystem Globally. Some of the companies in Jungle's portfolio include hotel booking platform, RedDoorz; cloud-based software provider, Deskera; interior home design platform, Livspace, and Thai fashion e-commerce startup, Pomelo Fashion.

We received 2600 applications for our second UK cohort, which was a 50% increase from the previous cohort. 71 founders were selected to join Antler, half of whom had previously launched a startup. After two months, we invested in seven startups which were built by these entrepreneurs. In keeping with our focus on supporting companies with diverse co-founding teams, over half of the companies that we invested in (four out of seven) had at least one woman founder, which is significantly above the London average of 21%.

In this episode we speak to Nir Eyal, a lecturer, consultant, and best-selling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches Behavioral Design, which is an intersection of psychology, technology, and business. He is also an active investor in habit-forming technology companies. Some of his recent investments include Kahoot!, Eventbrite, Anchor.fm, and Product Hunt. In our latest episode, Nir talks about his "Hook Model" to increase customer engagement, the internal trigger required to make your product a habitual one and how to plan your time to get the most of it without getting distracted.

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