Where exceptional builders meet exceptional co-founders

Every startup's story begins with remarkable people. Technologists, creators, thinkers and builders. At Antler India Residency, we are bringing exceptional builders together to create the companies of the future. 

The Residency is for founders and operators who are committed to building a venture-scale company. Apply to be a part of India's most exclusive community of founders, where you can find a co-founder, build your idea and get funded in 3 months. To apply for the cohort starting in October, apply here.

Idea to Team to Funding in 3 months

Antler India Residency is India’s most exclusive community of founders, with a set of interventions and activities designed to forge meaningful connections and collaborations. Ultimately, the Residency’s goal is to help you find the ideal co-founder, a long-term and enduring partnership between builders. The Residency is a space for anyone who is actively ideating, building, or taking the first steps in their entrepreneurial journey.

Exclusive community of founders

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With a less than 3% acceptance rate, the Residency cohort is handpicked and represents the top 1% of builders. The bottom line? Everyone in the cohort is highly committed to meeting the right co-founder and building their venture-scale company.

Accelerated path to company building

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The interventions include three months of intense programming involving goal-setting, work sprints, deep dive sessions with experts and idea validation workshops. After finding your co-founder and honing your idea, you will work on customer validation, building an MVP and go-to-market strategy in an accelerated time frame.

Your first believers and capital backers

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All Antler India Residency participants will receive a one-time grant of INR 1,50,000. After the Investment Committee, we offer select teams USD 150K for 10% equity.

Exclusive community of founders

.

With a less than 3% acceptance rate, the Residency cohort is handpicked and represents the top 1% of builders. The bottom line? Everyone in the cohort is highly committed to meeting the right co-founder and building their venture-scale company.

Accelerated path to company building

.

The interventions include three months of intense programming involving goal-setting, work sprints, deep dive sessions with experts and idea validation workshops. After finding your co-founder and honing your idea, you will work on customer validation, building an MVP and go-to-market strategy in an accelerated time frame.

Your first believers and capital backers

.

All Antler India Residency participants will receive a one-time grant of INR 1,50,000. After the Investment Committee, we offer select teams USD 150K for 10% equity.

The Schedule

Meet and build with fellow hand-picked, world-class operators who are committed to starting up, spend a targeted 12 weeks at the Residency, and find an enduring co-founder partnership with someone whom you may not have crossed paths with otherwise.

To apply for the cohort starting in October, apply here.

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Phase 1: Find your co-founder(s)

During Phase 1 at Antler India Residency, you will have the opportunity to meet 60 to 75 exceptional individuals from diverse backgrounds, all passionate about building a successful startup. The cohort will embark on an intense three months of in-person activities (in Bangalore) designed to maximize their time with each other.

Phase 2: Build your idea into a startup

Once you identify the right co-founder(s) to work with, you will start the building process. In Phase 2, you will spend time validating your problem statement, as well as executing that idea. You will be a part of a supportive environment to build out your MVP, and go-to-market plans, and start transforming your idea into a startup. From sector-specific sessions with industry leaders to masterclasses on the zero to one journey to candid conversations with seasoned founders, this Phase will aim to get you ready to raise your pre-seed round

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Phase 3: Get funding and fundraising support

For select teams that receive funding from Antler India, you will work closely with our portfolio team and overall organization to build from zero to one. You will have access to all Antler India and global portfolio resources to help you scale your business, prepare for your next-round fundraise, and develop as a founder. Multiple Antler India portfolio companies have raised their next rounds from Tier 1 VCs. For more information on this, visit here.

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Success stories, from across the world

Globally, Antler has conducted 70+ cohorts across 23 locations and developed a robust approach to forging deep, long-lasting connections between like-minded individuals with complementary skill sets. Below are some companies founded at Antler.

3,200+

Co-founders matched globally

600+

Portfolio companies, where co-founders met through Antler

56%

Average co-founder matching success rate

52%

Rate of raising follow-on capital

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As investors, we have looked at over 25,000 founders in the last decade, and funded over 100 companies across various stages, sectors, and geographies. We have seen multiple companies go to IPO, delivered sizeable M&A outcomes and worked closely with nearly 70 startups in helping them raise further rounds of funding from some of the world’s marquee funds. Here are some companies we have been first believers in.

Hear from founders who joined Antler to launch their company.

Sunil Goel

Second-time Founder; Previously founded Housejoy

I was looking for a tech co-founder and my search ended at Antler’s Residency program. The cohort is a fantastic blend of youth & experience and tech & business folks who have come together to pursue their startup dream. Being a second-time founder I was looking for a structured methodology for doing research and validating my idea, which I found here at the Antler Program.

Ankit Kamra

Co-founder, Covrzy; Ex-Head of Strategic Partnerships at Plum

Initially, I believed I could handle all the tasks on my own while building Covrzy. However, I soon realized that managing both the business and the technical aspects would be incredibly challenging. When I met my co-founder Veera at the Residency, we immediately connected and trusted the process that Antler had carved out. After working together we quickly realized that we shared the same goals at our core and that together, we could achieve results that were exponentially 10X than what either of us could have achieved individually.

Atul Shukla

Ex-Head of Engineering at Spext

The program has been a game-changer for me as a founder, accelerating my learning and enabling me to connect with over 60 like-minded founders from diverse domains. Without the Residency, I would not have been able to achieve such a feat in just three months. As a technical founder, I had the opportunity to interact with business founders and learn from their experiences, which has been invaluable. I must say that Antler’s team deserves special recognition for their exceptional focus on enabling co-founder searches. They are super sharp, incredibly helpful, and always ready to cheer you on.

Dr. Karan Raj Jaggi

Co-founder, Guardians; Ex-Global Product Head at Aktivhealth

Antler India Residency was a truly transformational experience for me. Having worked at multiple startups, I always had a strong desire to eventually start on my own entrepreneurial journey, but coming from a core medical background, I lacked a concrete playbook to put the plans in motion. AIR not only provided me with all the tools & resources that were needed but most importantly also highlighted that it’s okay to not have all the answers!

Neha Juneja

IndiaP2P

The Antler team feels like an extension of one’s own team. I have some experience raising money before, but this is unique to Antler. They don't see you as investors, you are like their own team. Antler team understands how founders think about building as they’ve done it before.

Vignesh Baskaran

Co-founder, Hexo.ai; Ex-Senior Data Scientist at Clarivate

I was actively looking for a co-founder for more than a year. I tried multiple co-founder matching programs and nothing worked out. Finally, I met my wonderful co-founder Kunal through AIR and it has been a fantastic journey ever since. Very grateful to the folks at Antler. They are not only investors but also have been operators. So they have founders first mindset and that is the best part of Antler!

Hitesh Bhuraria

Co-founder, Sangti; Ex-Senior Manager at Bain & Company

Antler Residency Program has been a critical turning point in my entrepreneurial journey. Access to a curated set of high-potential founders, 1-1 brainstorming sessions with the Antler team, and information sessions with industry experts have helped refine our idea and accelerate our go-to-market. 9 months on from the program, I am building a climate tech platform with my co-founder, whom I met at Antler Residency and a team of 8 that has been enabled by the subsequent funding support.

Who is the Residency for?

Repeat entrepreneurs, business and engineering leaders from companies like Amazon, BCG, CarDekho, Flipkart, Google, Meta, Morgan Stanley, PayTM, PhonePe, Razorpay, and Unacademy have joined the previous Residencies. 

The Residency is for the top 1% of builders and operators who are absolutely certain they want to dedicate their next chapter to entrepreneurship. Here is what they look like:

  • A repeat founder who is looking to kickstart their founder journey again. 
  • A senior leader in a high-growth startup who is certain they want to build something of their own and has spent a few months thinking about a problem statement. 
  • An engineer excited about emerging technologies and has built systems at scale and/or led engineering teams at large companies. 
  • A domain expert who has validated a few ideas and is looking for complementary co-founders to kickstart your venture.

At Antler India Residency, we ensure that all participants are serious and fully committed to the journey. Thus, we require all applicants to be free from any formal jobs: you should have either quit or are actively serving notice, before the Residency starts in October 2023. 

For any queries, please write to us at india-residency@antler.co.

Here is what our founders have to say

Entrepass Partner

The people behind Antler India

Rajiv Srivatsa
Partner

Rajiv is a Partner in the Antler Bangalore office. He co-founded Urban Ladder (UL), India's top omni-channel furniture brand. Over ~8 years, UL raised over $100Mn in venture capital from top Indian VCs and changed the way Indians shop for furniture online. Prior to Urban Ladder, he served as a Senior Product Manager with Yahoo. He has been featured on GQ Influential Young Indians and repeatedly on the Fortune 40 Under 40 India list. Rajiv loves working with early-stage entrepreneurs on product, culture and brand to build scalable companies.

Nitin Sharma
Partner

Nitin brings 12+ years of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 100+ tech startups across stages, from being the first believer all the way to pre-IPO. Nitin learnt the ropes of the VC business in the US at NEA (one of the world’s largest funds) and was also an early executive at EverFi (acq. by Blackbaud for $750M). Nitin was part of the founding team at Lightbox Ventures, one of India’s leading funds (now $400M AUM). He then created his own micro-VC (FirstPrinciples) as a thesis-driven, early believer in 40+ startups, and was the first VC in India to focus on Web3. A Wharton graduate, Nitin has served on advisory boards/groups for the USC Viterbi School, NITI Aayog, AngelList India and TheBetterIndia.

Lakshmikant PB
Head of Finance & Legal

Lakshmikant is the Head of Finance & Legal at Antler India. Lakshmikant has more than 19 years of experience in PE & VC Fund Management, NBFC Operations, and Banking Operations. Prior to joining Antler, Lakshmikant was a Consultant to T-Hub, a Startup accelerator based in Hyderabad, and helped their startups raise capital from Angels and VC investors. Prior to his role as a Consultant, he was the Finance Controller at SRI Capital, a US-based tech VC Fund where he set up their India operations and represented the fund on the board of portfolio companies. Before that, Lakshmikant spent 10 years at Caspian Impact Investments where he was the Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Caspian, Lakshmikant worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions and Citigroup. Lakshmikant holds an MBA from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

Susmit Patodia
Capital Director

Susmit Patodia is the Capital Director at Antler India. Susmit started his career with Accenture Management Consulting.

After which he spent the last decade with Motilal Oswal, one of India's premier financial services company. He has held various leadership positions in Motilal from heading institutional equities sales business to portfolio management at the Asset Management Company.

He is a strong believer in India’s meteoric growth over the next decade and his focus is on “Antifragile investing in India”, “Don’t bet against India” and “Return to not normal but better”. Susmit is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and Madras University.

Gowri Shankar
Portfolio Director

Gowri Shankar leads the portfolio function at Antler. Prior to Antler, Gowri has a decade of deep experience in building and scaling internet businesses in India. He co-founded AllChemist (one of India’s first e-Pharmacy players), RoofandFloor (end-to-end real estate commerce platform) and STEP (English language testing platform) from scratch. He was part of the executive leadership team that scaled InMobi (largest independent Mobile advertising platform) and Medlife/Pharmeasy (e-Health market leader). He also transformed Cleartax’s (India’s largest SaaS platform) Enterprise/ B2B Business and set it up for scale.

Gowri received an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru where he was awarded the Chairman’s Gold Medal.

Nandini Vishwanath
Program Director

Nandini is the Program Director at Antler India. She was previously the founder of GIGI Benefits (YC’20). Prior to her founder stint, she architected and led customer experience for Urban Ladder, India’s leading Furniture e-commerce startup. She holds a Masters Degree in Linguistics from English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India and New Media Management from Syracuse University, NY.

Rahul Seth
Scouting Director

Rahul is the Scouting Director at Antler India. At Antler, he leads the process of identifying the most driven founders looking to build iconic companies. He has been an early stage operator, founder and angel investor in the Indian startup ecosystem, and has backed the founders of Pixxel, FamPay and Homingos. Rahul is an alumnus of BITS Pilani & The Indian Military Academy.

Ishavasyam Dash
Marketing Director

Ishavasyam Dash is the Marketing Director at Antler India. Previously, Isha was a part of the leadership team at Unacademy, where she helped launch and grow a new skill-based course platform. She also led brand marketing for Urban Ladder, helping it become one of India's most loved brands. Prior, she was at Dulux (AkzoNobel), where she launched the specialist paints category in India. Isha holds a Master's Degree in Marketing from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Vineet Agarwal
Investment Director

Vineet Agarwal is an Investment Manager at Antler India. He executes investments at Antler India and helps raise capital for Antler India Fund. In his last stint, he was a core member of the Strategy division at Ola and was involved in multiple fundraises ($500m+) and M&A activity across Ola Group. Previously, he was at Goldman Sachs (Investment Banking) where he worked on deals worth $40bn+. Vineet is a 2x founder, and founded Motorhood (a vehicle maintenance startup) & BluGanesha Airwaves (a proximity marketing venture). He holds an MBA from NMIMS Mumbai and a Bachelors in Commerce from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.

Rohan Kohli
Portfolio Management

Rohan is a part of the Portfolio Management team at Antler India.Post his under-graduation from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he joined a 0-to-1 SaaS expert network startup Lynk Global as one of the founding members at their India office. Following the success of this office, Rohan moved to New York and Toronto to set up Lynk's North America business.His most recent stint involved leading growth and GTM initiatives at xto10x, a startup that supports other companies in their scaling journey.

Samiksha Agarwal
Investment Associate

Samiksha works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. She focuses on Founder Scouting, where she helps identify super passionate founders building for the future. Prior to this, she worked as an Analyst at 3one4 Capital and interned with EY in Zurich in the TAS department. She is an alumnus of The Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of St. Gallen, and IE Business School.

Karan Prasad
Program Associate

Karan is the Program Associate for the Antler India cohorts and plays an active role in enabling partnerships for our global portfolio. Prior to joining Antler, he worked across business development and community management across SaaS and cloud verticals. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from BMS College of Engineering.

Neha Reddy
Marketing Analyst

Neha is the Marketing Analyst at Antler India. Previously, she was a part of the founding team at leap.club, a community-led professional network for women where she worked on marketing and engagement.

Reetik Agarwal
Investment Associate

Reetik works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. He focuses on Investments, where he builds thesis & identify trends in the market, performs due diligence on companies and makes investment recommendations.

Sankalp Sharma
Investment Associate

Sankalp works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. He focuses on building our founder network and identifying super passionate founders building for the future. Prior to this, he spent 5 years working with LocoNav in multiple leadership roles across Operations and Strategy. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Varun Bengani
Investment Analyst

Varun is a part of the Investments team at Antler India, focusing on early-stage consumer internet businesses, D2C brands & Web 3. He holds a Bachelors degree in Commerce from St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata where he pursued Chartered Accountancy and dropped out as a finalist.

Ojasvi Srivastava
Portfolio Analyst

Ojasvi is the part of the portfolio team at Antler India. Previously, he was working closely with two early stage startups in product management & fundraising.

Neharika Garg
Investment Associate

Neharika works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. Prior to this, she was an early member of GOAT Brand Labs (e-commerce rollup/house of brands player) and did stints across M&A and Category where where she analysed and invested in consumer brands and supported the growth of the portfolio. Neharika is an alumnus of The Shri Ram College of Commerce.

Antler India Residency
Vineet Agarwal
Investment Director

Vineet Agarwal is an Investment Manager at Antler India. He executes investments at Antler India and helps raise capital for Antler India Fund. In his last stint, he was a core member of the Strategy division at Ola and was involved in multiple fundraises ($500m+) and M&A activity across Ola Group. Previously, he was at Goldman Sachs (Investment Banking) where he worked on deals worth $40bn+. Vineet is a 2x founder, and founded Motorhood (a vehicle maintenance startup) & BluGanesha Airwaves (a proximity marketing venture). He holds an MBA from NMIMS Mumbai and a Bachelors in Commerce from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.

Varun Bengani
Investment Analyst

Varun is a part of the Investments team at Antler India, focusing on early-stage consumer internet businesses, D2C brands & Web 3. He holds a Bachelors degree in Commerce from St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata where he pursued Chartered Accountancy and dropped out as a finalist.

Susmit Patodia
Capital Director

Susmit Patodia is the Capital Director at Antler India. Susmit started his career with Accenture Management Consulting.

After which he spent the last decade with Motilal Oswal, one of India's premier financial services company. He has held various leadership positions in Motilal from heading institutional equities sales business to portfolio management at the Asset Management Company.

He is a strong believer in India’s meteoric growth over the next decade and his focus is on “Antifragile investing in India”, “Don’t bet against India” and “Return to not normal but better”. Susmit is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and Madras University.

Samiksha Agarwal
Investment Associate

Samiksha works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. She focuses on Founder Scouting, where she helps identify super passionate founders building for the future. Prior to this, she worked as an Analyst at 3one4 Capital and interned with EY in Zurich in the TAS department. She is an alumnus of The Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of St. Gallen, and IE Business School.

Rohan Kohli
Portfolio Management

Rohan is a part of the Portfolio Management team at Antler India.Post his under-graduation from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he joined a 0-to-1 SaaS expert network startup Lynk Global as one of the founding members at their India office. Following the success of this office, Rohan moved to New York and Toronto to set up Lynk's North America business.His most recent stint involved leading growth and GTM initiatives at xto10x, a startup that supports other companies in their scaling journey.

Rajiv Srivatsa
Partner

Rajiv is a Partner in the Antler Bangalore office. He co-founded Urban Ladder (UL), India's top omni-channel furniture brand. Over ~8 years, UL raised over $100Mn in venture capital from top Indian VCs and changed the way Indians shop for furniture online. Prior to Urban Ladder, he served as a Senior Product Manager with Yahoo. He has been featured on GQ Influential Young Indians and repeatedly on the Fortune 40 Under 40 India list. Rajiv loves working with early-stage entrepreneurs on product, culture and brand to build scalable companies.

Rahul Seth
Scouting Director

Rahul is the Scouting Director at Antler India. At Antler, he leads the process of identifying the most driven founders looking to build iconic companies. He has been an early stage operator, founder and angel investor in the Indian startup ecosystem, and has backed the founders of Pixxel, FamPay and Homingos. Rahul is an alumnus of BITS Pilani & The Indian Military Academy.

Nitin Sharma
Partner

Nitin brings 12+ years of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 100+ tech startups across stages, from being the first believer all the way to pre-IPO. Nitin learnt the ropes of the VC business in the US at NEA (one of the world’s largest funds) and was also an early executive at EverFi (acq. by Blackbaud for $750M). Nitin was part of the founding team at Lightbox Ventures, one of India’s leading funds (now $400M AUM). He then created his own micro-VC (FirstPrinciples) as a thesis-driven, early believer in 40+ startups, and was the first VC in India to focus on Web3. A Wharton graduate, Nitin has served on advisory boards/groups for the USC Viterbi School, NITI Aayog, AngelList India and TheBetterIndia.

Neha Reddy
Marketing Analyst

Neha is the Marketing Analyst at Antler India. Previously, she was a part of the founding team at leap.club, a community-led professional network for women where she worked on marketing and engagement.

Nandini Vishwanath
Program Director

Nandini is the Program Director at Antler India. She was previously the founder of GIGI Benefits (YC’20). Prior to her founder stint, she architected and led customer experience for Urban Ladder, India’s leading Furniture e-commerce startup. She holds a Masters Degree in Linguistics from English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India and New Media Management from Syracuse University, NY.

Lakshmikant PB
Head of Finance & Legal

Lakshmikant is the Head of Finance & Legal at Antler India. Lakshmikant has more than 19 years of experience in PE & VC Fund Management, NBFC Operations, and Banking Operations. Prior to joining Antler, Lakshmikant was a Consultant to T-Hub, a Startup accelerator based in Hyderabad, and helped their startups raise capital from Angels and VC investors. Prior to his role as a Consultant, he was the Finance Controller at SRI Capital, a US-based tech VC Fund where he set up their India operations and represented the fund on the board of portfolio companies. Before that, Lakshmikant spent 10 years at Caspian Impact Investments where he was the Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Caspian, Lakshmikant worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions and Citigroup. Lakshmikant holds an MBA from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

Karan Prasad
Program Associate

Karan is the Program Associate for the Antler India cohorts and plays an active role in enabling partnerships for our global portfolio. Prior to joining Antler, he worked across business development and community management across SaaS and cloud verticals. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from BMS College of Engineering.

Ishavasyam Dash
Marketing Director

Ishavasyam Dash is the Marketing Director at Antler India. Previously, Isha was a part of the leadership team at Unacademy, where she helped launch and grow a new skill-based course platform. She also led brand marketing for Urban Ladder, helping it become one of India's most loved brands. Prior, she was at Dulux (AkzoNobel), where she launched the specialist paints category in India. Isha holds a Master's Degree in Marketing from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Cathy Guo
Portfolio and Investment Manager

Cathy Guo is a Portfolio and Investment Manager at Antler India. Previously, Cathy was the CEO and Co-Founder of Dunya Labs, building developer tools for decentralized applications. She was also a founding team member at True Beacon, a new-age asset management company formed by the founders of Zerodha, and led early-stage venture investments in companies such as Clinikk and Stayqrious at First Principles, an early-stage seed fund in Bangalore. Cathy has a degree in Economics and Philosophy from Columbia University. She is the co-author of Myth of the Entrepreneur, a book on social entrepreneurship published by Harper Collins India.

Antler India Portfolio from the Residency

View all
ClimateTech idea to funding in two months: The journey of Sangti

A fitting pairing of Hitesh Bhuraria and Nishant Singh, one that was formed at the first-ever cohort of Antler India Residency, is set to build the future of how companies approach their decarbonization goals.

High impact and high scale: The journey of Guardians

A country of over 1.4 billion people and something as crucial as the medical emergency response system still remains unsolved. The numbers quantify the magnitude and gravity of this problem - over 50% of the ambulances do not arrive even after 60 minutes, 90% of ambulances do not have the basic equipment and 97% have no trained personnel. But here is the most staggering number of them all - over 50% of all deaths in India are preventable. While ambulances are a part of the problem, they are not the solution. The missing piece in creating a robust medical emergency response system is a solid digital infrastructure layer.

Investing in Generative AI with Hexo

Generative AI is opening up a world of opportunities and Hexo is building the underlying infrastructure to enable that. We are thrilled to partner with Vignesh Baskaran and Kunal Bhatia to help build and scale Hexo AI.

Know someone looking for a co-founder?

Help them explore the Residency

Events

Check out our upcoming events, workshops and meet-ups.

Explore Events

FAQs

Do I need to have an idea to join?

We prefer founders who are ideating on a problem statement in a particular theme/sector. We also accept exceptional founders without a concrete idea/problem statement, but a specific sector in mind and are willing to be flexible on working with different ideas from the cohort.

What if I already have a product?

If you are looking for a co-founder to continue building this product, you may consider the Residency. If you are an existing team with a product, we would love to still engage with you as part of our pre-seed investments. Do send us your application here: https://www.antler.co/apply/india

Which industry or sector does Antler focus on?

We are industry agnostic and look to invest in visionary technology companies.

What is the application process?

You can apply to the Residency through the application on our website here https://www.antler.co/location/india-residency. Select applicants will be invited to interview with our team.

Why was my application rejected?

Unfortunately, due to the large volume of applications, we are unable to provide personalised feedback to individuals.

Will I have to take funding from Antler after I find my co-founder?

Yes, Antler reserves the right but not the obligation to invest in your company once you have identified a co-founder.

Are the investment terms standardized across the Residency?

Yes, the terms are standard. We give you USD 150K for 10% equity. When you decide to join the Antler India Residency, you also agree to our investment terms.

What if I have already raised funds? Can I still apply?

No. If you have already raised funds, you are not eligible. However, we would love to still engage with you as part of our pre-seed investments. Do send us your application here: https://www.antler.co/apply/india

Is this Residency remote?

We are coming to your city for Phase 1! And then we expect all of our founders to meet in Bangalore for an immersive and intense 3 months and build together in Phase 2. Phase 3 is when founder teams pitch to our investment committee at the end of 3 months. We can do this IRL or on Zoom.

Is quitting my job mandatory?

Yes, we strongly encourage our Residency participants to have quit their jobs or be on their notice period. In exceptional circumstances, we consider folks who have been granted a sabbatical.

What kind of founders will the cohort have?

The cohort will have a balanced mix of operators and builders. We will ensure that everyone has enough opportunities to find the right co-founder(s) for them. These potential founders are exceptionally smart and driven individuals, who have excelled in their roles and have committed to the path of entrepreneurship.

What happens when I match with a co-founder who has a different idea?

We encourage exploring both ideas with an open mind to pick the problem statement that's most compelling, has a large market size and can be iterated fast and experimented with. We've had several of our founders in other geographies drop the initial idea and pivot to their co-founder's idea. That said, if your idea is strong and you are keen on it, we are open to working with you to figure this out.

Is there an obligation for the equity to be split equally between the co-founders or can it be done on mutually agreed terms?

There is no obligation as such but an equal split is generally a good idea all around.

If I do not find a single co-founder and decide to start the company alone, then do I still have to give out equity?

We only accept founders into the Residency if we believe that finding the right partner will exponentially improve your company’s odds of success. It is by exception that we will invest in solo founders. However, if we decide to invest, yes. The terms are valid for 6 months from the program start date. If you feel that you do not require a co-founder and would want to build by yourself, we encourage you to talk directly to us for a pre-seed investment here: https://apply.antler.co/signup

Got questions about the Residency?

Get in touch with our team!

India Residency