Launch your startup, get funded in 6 weeks —with Antler in the US
We’re a global early stage VC backing founders from day zero. We invest up to $500k through our founder residency – a building sprint where you leverage community, coaching, and intense effort to make 6 months of progress in 6 weeks.
Austin
San Francisco
New York City
Join an exceptional community
Surround yourself with like-minded peers to share insights, find co-founders, hold each other accountable, and build a support network.
Receive dedicated coaching
Get unparalleled access to the Antler team and our global network of experts, notable founders and operators, and seasoned investors.
Move at lightning speed
Achieve major milestones to launch your idea faster and more efficiently with all the resources at your fingertips – 6 months of progress in 6 weeks.
Kickstart VC funding with $500k
Invested companies receive $200,000 for 8% equity and reserve $300k additional follow-on funding to help you scale your company.
How Antler works
In the U.S. we run a 6-week residency twice a year – in the spring and fall – to promote early-stage company formation and enable founders to secure pre-seed funding.
The Selection Process
We review thousands of applications from individual founders and startup teams and select the top 3% to participate in our San Francisco, New York, and Austin residencies. We look for a combination of “founder DNA” and exceptional skillsets in building product, selling, or domain expertise. Our residency unlocks value for founders at the exploration phase and also established teams already on their way to build an amazing company.
The Residency
We also offer group events, office hours, guest speakers, and other optional opportunities to enrich the experience and create lasting relationships. This experience lasts for 6 weeks, in-person, in our San Francisco, New York City, and Austin offices, and is designed for founders who are already full-time, or ready to go full-time, on entrepreneurship.
Our Investment
We invest up to $500k to catalyze your pre-seed raise, with reserves for later rounds. If you pass our investment committee, we first write you a check for $200,000 via SAFE for 8% of your new company. Founders can then unlock an additional $300,000 of follow-on funding uncapped. Post-investment, we foster an even higher touch relationship, where founders continue to work with Antler on a weekly basis. Focus areas include customer and revenue growth, and future fundraising preparation. As portfolio companies progress toward their next round, Antler introduces their most recent investment cohort to over 1,000 downstream investors through a portfolio showcase.
Antler really did accelerate Marco's trajectory: we created a broad network of VC connections and raised a material amount of additional institutional cash. This allows us to make the impact that we want to achieve: we’re building the premier tech-enabled trade finance platform in Latin America. Antler has been an integral partner in powering us forward.
Antler’s collection of founders, operators and investors is the strongest platform for an early stage founder on the market.
Building a startup with Antler allows you the room to develop, grow or even pivot your business idea, providing you with the guidance you need along the way.
Antler truly understands what it means to be a founder and are truly involved as partners with portfolio companies at the earliest stage.
We’ve helped put hundreds of founders on the path to success
Fueled by a passion that goes beyond traditional investing, we’re on a mission to increase our founders’ speed and maximize their success in solving the world’s most important challenges.
2,200+
Founders supported
200+
Companies invested in
#1
Most active global early stage investor
35%
Companies with at least one female+ founder
60%
Companies with at least one BIPOC founder
85%
Companies from recent batch raised additional funding within 6 months
Vero Technologies
By using alternative data, Vero has developed a unique approach that makes it more efficient to profile auto dealers, underwrite credit facilities and most importantly, monitor dealership risk in real-time through the life of the commercial loan. They are launching a floorplan lending platform focused on independent used car dealerships. The platform will deploy tools to digitize the risk management and credit administration functions.
PowerX
PowerX is the Nest for water heating. Its plug-and-play unit runs heaters more efficiently and converts them to utility-grade thermal batteries for grid balancing. PowerX is risk-free and attaches in minutes to 90% of existing water heaters. It saves users up to 65% on water heating cost and significantly reduces CO2 emissions. With PowerX, users save on energy expenses, utilities save by using water heaters as batteries for load balancing, and private grid companies pay for usage data
Fanfix (Superordinary)
Co-founded by Cameron Dallas, Fanfix is a clean, premium content subscription platform for Gen Z creators to monetize their fanbase and connect with their most loyal fans. Since our launch in August, we have hit $800k in annualized subscriptions, 350k MAU's and over 400 creators, all without spending a dollar in marketing.
FREQUENTLY —ASKED QUESTIONS
We are not an accelerator or an incubator. We’re the inception investor, backing founders often before they’ve found their co-founder or developed their idea. We take massive pride in helping our founders identify, develop, validate, and start scaling their ideas and business models quickly through our residencies. We don’t launch and leave; we keep supporting our founders throughout their company's life cycle—from day zero to greatness.
We are focused on providing founders better access to capital at the very beginning of their journey, so we back founders at the ideation stage. We'll invest as early as a clearly defined product statement and roadmap to your MVP, and we'll even help you incorporate your new venture if necessary. We always aim to be the first institutional check into our portfolio companies.
We are industry agnostic and invest in all technology sectors so long as the idea is venture scalable.
We back founders who are wired differently — the kind of people who must build, who don’t wait for permission, and who can turn nothing into something fast.
Some join with an MVP in motion, and others start from scratch and find a co-founder during the residency. Stage matters less than trajectory — how fast you move and how much you raise the bar.
Across backgrounds, we look for four things:
- Drive – A level of urgency and ownership most people simply don’t have
- Grit – Not the performative kind — the real kind, where you keep going long after it stops being fun
- Spike – You’re exceptional at something. Could be commercial instinct, storytelling, technical depth, leadership, or attracting top talent — but it’s visible, and it makes you dangerous
Commitment – You’re all in. This isn’t a side project. No freelancing. No safety nets.
Yes. The Antler residency is a full-time commitment, which means you are 100% dedicated to building. Most founders come in 4-5 days a week.
The next Antler US residencies kick off in September 2025 in-person in NYC, Austin, and SF.
Yes, co-founders are welcome, though we only require 1 founder to be dedicated full-time in the residency. While we do not guarantee co-founder matching during the residency, you are encouraged to meet and potentially team up with other residents, bring in folks from your network to work in the office, or canvas the Antler network for potential co-founder fits. This cohort, we will have around 100 founders joining us per location.
Yes - all accepted founders who are relocating for the residency may apply for a $2.5k living expense grant. If you are joining us from out of town, check out Relocation Resources.
If you successfully pitch to the investment committee, you’ll join the Antler portfolio and be assigned a dedicated partner and coach from our Investment Team. We walk shoulder-to-shoulder with our founders, acting as an extension of your team. We provide strategic guidance, problem-solving support, and valuable introductions to founders, customers, and investors. You’ll also gain increased access to Antler’s global community and early-stage investment partners. In the months following the investment, you’ll get desk space at our offices and tailored support to clarify goals, refine your roadmap, and set you up to grow and raise your seed round.
To join the Antler residency, at least one co-founder will need to already have work authorization that lets you build your company here. Antler does not provide visa sponsorship. We welcome founders to apply if they are U.S. citizens, permanent residents, or otherwise hold a status that provides independent, indefinite, and unrestricted work authorization.
BUILD YOUR STARTUP
—WITH ANTLER
Turn your vision into a world-changing company. Apply to Antler and start building alongside a global network of founders and investors.
OUR TEAM
Bob is General Partner at Antler US. Bob is an experienced founder and 3x startup veteran, having raised over $130M in venture capital from leading investors including Sequoia Capital and Marc Andreessen. After his third startup Qik was acquired by Skype, Bob became VP of Business Development at Skype. After Skype’s $8.5B acquisition by Microsoft, Bob served as VP&GM of the division at Microsoft.
Bob left to join LinkedIn as VP of Business Development, where he was a member of the product leadership team and led partnerships for 4.5 years, and then returned to Microsoft as part of their $26.2B acquisition of LinkedIn. Bob was an angel investor in payments company Stripe and subsequently joined as head of partnerships and member of the Leadership Team. Bob transitioned full-time into investing personally as well as at the venture capital firm Defy.vc and has invested in multiple unicorn companies.
Bob won the Dubilier Prize at Harvard Business School, was named College Scholar at Cornell, holds a 3rd degree black belt in Aikido, and is first author on 10 granted US patents. Bob was also a columnist in a Japanese national newspaper.
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Ryan Sommerville is a General Partner at Antler US. As the first hire for Antler's US expansion four years ago, he played a pivotal role in establishing the firm's presence in New York and Austin. As Head of Portfolio, Ryan spearheaded Antler US’s portfolio management, driving the success of the firm's investments and supporting the growth of portfolio companies. Prior to Antler, Ryan built and scaled ventures in the financial services, apparel, and technology sectors and served as the Director of Financial Programs at Start Small, Think Big.
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Prerna Sharma is a General Partner at Antler US and head of the firm’s Austin office. Prerna joined Antler in 2018 in Singapore and was among the first 5 employees of the firm. Before moving to Austin, Prerna was instrumental in expanding Antler’s presence globally along with creating our core methodology on founder origination. Before Antler, Prerna was employee #3 at Uber Asia, where she helped scale Uber across all cities in Asia. After Uber, Prerna successfully laid the entire People & Culture framework at Flow Traders Asia, a leading Dutch proprietary trading firm, specializing in ETFs. Prerna graduated as a Computer Engineer and spent her early career in India building highly scalable products for massive companies like AMEX and GE Healthcare.
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Jeff is a sales leader and investor. Over a nine year run at LinkedIn, Jeff held a series of roles launching new business units and leading sales teams to best-in-company performances as the business grew to 770 million members and $10B in revenue. Separately, Jeff launched his own company, Earhoox, scaling it across the globe. He is also an active angel investor focused on health, wealth, and happiness. Before coming to Antler, he was a General Partner at Forum Ventures, focused on early stage B2B SaaS.
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Lisa joins Antler with over 16 years of experience in Venture Capital. Before Antler, Lisa was the CFO of Tribe Capital. Prior to Tribe, Lisa served as VP of Finance for Khosla Ventures and as the part-time CFO for several smaller firms including Asset Management Ventures & Prospect Ventures. She started her career at Morgenthaler, based in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Charlie Hayley Bell leads Capital and Investor Relations for Antler US. Charlie has 20 years of alternative investment experience in the US, and Latin America across both public and private markets advising investors and raising capital for hedge funds, real estate, PE, and venture capital. Charlie is an investor in early and growth stage technology and CPG companies. He previously was with HSBC, Archstone Partners, and Old City Securities. He holds a MA from Edinburgh University.
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Roslyn is a Partner and Head of U.S. Platform at Antler, where she oversees founder experience and operations across sourcing, residency, and portfolio support. Prior to Antler, she helped launch the enterprise segment at WeWork while partnering with Fortune 500 financial services firms, after spending time in cross-asset derivatives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and U.S.-China trade policy at the Executive Office of the President. Roslyn holds a BA in international relations and applied economics and management from Cornell University and MBA from NYU Stern.
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Rio is an Associate Partner at Antler US. Prior to Antler, Rio was focused on growth strategy and innovation at frog where he was a Senior Strategist, shaping ideas into commercially viable products and services. Previously, Rio had experience in both growth equity and early-stage VC.
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Caroline works with founders in Antler's Austin office and leads Antler's US marketing and growth functions. Prior to joining Antler, Caroline worked at NationSwell as an associate producer and in finance at Visa. Caroline graduated Cum Laude from the University of San Diego, where she obtained her BBA in Finance and Business Economics.
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Cash is a principal on the investment team at Antler. Previously, he was a tech-focused investor at Sweater, the first early stage VC fund available to the public. Cash draws on both a technical and investment background, with time spent at Lucid Software (data engineer) and an early stage impact fund (impact investment associate). Cash holds a BS in Information Systems from Brigham Young University.
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Kelly is a Principal on the investing team at Antler. Prior to Antler, she worked across the startup ecosystem at the intersection of technology, climate, and capital. She was a product manager at an edtech nonprofit, a system design engineer and operations manager at agtech startups Plenty and Sensei Ag, Chief of Staff at an energy and climate business, and an intern at three venture capital firms while completing her MBA. In her free time, she can be found exploring a new city, listening to Planet Money or My Climate Journey, climbing, surfing, or searching for a new local coffee spot. Kelly holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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Jake is a professional matchmaker and entrepreneurship enthusiast. After graduating from UT Austin, Jake joined Capital Factory's Investor Relations team, eventually growing to the role of Director of Platform managing the fund’s value add services for portfolio founders. After Capital Factory, he joined Foundation Capital, a 30 year old bay area Pre-Seed fund where he built out their Portfolio support function and managed the firm's relationships with F500 VP and CLevel executives. At Antler, Jake identifies high potential future founders and runs them through Antler's investment process. Outside of work, Jake is an avid fan of the NBA and enjoys grilling, walking his two dogs Rainey and Tedder, and trying new cuisines.
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Sam is a Principal on the Investment team at Antler in NYC. Prior to Antler, Sam was the co-founder and CEO of Pinstripe, a venture-backed social commerce startup focused on bringing offline shopping online. Before that, Sam was a Partner at CircleUp, a seed and series A focused venture capital firm focused on consumer startups where he led sourcing, diligencing and supporting investments. Outside of being a former founder (and VC), Sam is an avid filmmaker, having written and sold a number of screenplays and directed a short that won a few awards, and writes a Substack called Compounding Thoughts where he explores a number of topics, such as what happens when humans no longer have a monopoly on imagination.
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Kaila creates life-changing experiences for our founders. She leads founder residency and community events in NYC. She formerly led community experience at The Org for founders and CHROs. Prior to that, she worked as a B2B software sales trainer at Sprinklr, Procore and CreatorIQ and used to volunteer with Seoul Startups in Korea as a community host and speaker. She also coaches executives and founders in public speaking and storytelling.
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Allie is the Director of Platform at Antler, where she runs the Austin Residency program and sits on the US Founder Experience team, overseeing partnerships and post-investment support.
Before joining Antler, she was the first non-investment hire and Director of Platform at Wireframe Ventures, where she built the firm’s operations, portfolio support, and community initiatives from the ground up. Prior to venture, she worked across partnerships, community, and operations at early-stage startups, helping founders scale their companies.
Allie is an active member of the VC Platform community and is a Board Member of Let’s Talk Ops (LTO).
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Kenzie leads founder scouting and growth for Antler in the US and sits on the Founder Experience team in NYC. Prior to joining Antler, she was a fractional Head of Growth at a handful of seed stage consumer tech startups. Before that, Kenzie co-founded a telemedicine startup in Mexico that treated thousands of patients in LatAm. Outside of work, Kenzie runs a wine club called Matilda Imports and is a certified sommelier.
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Rahim is a Controller at Antler, focusing on finance and operations for the U.S. region. He brings over 15 years of experience in accounting and finance. Prior to joining Antler, he served as a Fund Controller at Carta, supporting venture capital clients. Earlier in his career, Rahim held roles at J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, gaining extensive experience in the banking industry before transitioning into venture capital.
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Antler portfolio companies raise capital from other leading VCs
