Launch your startup, get funded in 6 weeks —with Antler in the U.S.
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.
Launch your startup, get funded in 6 weeks —with Antler in the U.S.
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.
Surround yourself with like-minded peers to share insights, find co-founders, hold each other accountable, and build a support network.
Get unparalleled access to the Antler team and our global network of experts, notable founders and operators, and seasoned investors.
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.
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 NYC 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
The Antler residency is a building sprint: helping founders relentlessly focus and accomplish the core priorities of their startup in a shorter period of time. Each week, founders establish their highest priorities and leverage the Antler community, coaching, and energy to drive toward their goals.
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 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.
FAQs
By helping thousands of founders launch and scale the next generation of great companies that address some of the most pressing challenges of our time, we move society forward and make progress a certainty.
You can apply to our Residency if you hold any type of valid US work visa.
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, 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 across all technology sectors.
The next Antler US Residency will launch in March 2025 in-person Austin, TX and New York City. We highly encourage you to invite stellar fellow founders in your network to apply to Antler!
The Antler residency is a full-time commitment. This means that you are 100% dedicating your time to building your company. That said, it is not “mandatory” to be in the office from 9-5PM daily. The intention is to foster an engaged and supportive community of founders building together in person. As long as you show up for cohort activities and receive value from the community, you can spend your time in any way you see most fit to build your company. Most founders come in 4-5 days a week.
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.
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 80 founders joining us per location.
Not every founder or team will receive the opportunity to present to the investment committee (IC) during Pitch Week. This happens for a variety of reasons, including: dropping out for personal reasons or time commitment issues, pivoting your idea and requiring more time to validate, not demonstrating sufficient traction to put your best foot forward yet, deciding to join another founder or team, or deciding that your business is not venture scalable, amongst other reasons. If it is the case that you do not present to the Antler IC at this point in time, we will work with you on an individual basis to explore other options, such as joining our Talent Network, setting goals and a timeline for a delayed IC pitch, etc.
We do not have a minimum or maximum number of investments per cohort or location, though it is unlikely that we invest in 100% or 0% of founders in the residency. Historically, we have invested in 20-45% of founders in each residency. We generally make our decisions based on founder strength in domain expertise, deep understanding of the problem statement and your customer, first principled thinking and vision, execution ability, and progress made over the period of time.
We would never force anyone to take our money 🙂 Technically, the Memorandum of Understanding (part of your DocuSign package) is an expectation-setting legal document. We expect teams to honor the spirit of the agreement as we do. The intent is that over the eight weeks, we will earn our equity, and you will see the value of having the Antler team on your cap table and as an active advisor for continued future support as an extension of your founding team.
If you successfully pitch to the investment committee, you will become part of the Antler portfolio and kick off Phase II. You will be assigned a deal lead to work closely with going forward, and go through a transition week where we will support you on incorporation, documentation, admin, and other items in order to receive the funding, clarify goals and milestones, and set you up on the path to scale and raise your seed.
If you are unsuccessful in pitching to the investment committee, you will still remain a valuable part of the Antler community for life. You will retain access to office space for an additional week, remain in our Slack community and other platforms, and can meet with our team to discuss next steps for your startup. Previous residents have taken on feedback and returned to pitch successfully, joined Antler portfolio companies or the talent network, or started new companies and returned to Antler. The door is always open 🔑
Apply now to Antler U.S.
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.
Pathzero
Vero Technologies
.avif)
PowerX
Marco
Break Sports
Frich
Stairs
Fanfix (Superordinary)
Antler portfolio companies raise capital from other leading VCs
Meet our team
Mike is a Partner at Antler Australia and co-leads the Australia operations. He's a seasoned operator and investor who kickstarted his career in equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions.Mike's journey with Uber began as the second employee in Asia and the 121st globally. As the Head of Operations for Australia and New Zealand, he played a pivotal role in building a thriving multi-billion-dollar business locally. Over the course of six years, he witnessed the local team's remarkable growth, scaling it from just three members to a formidable team of over 500. This experience gave him invaluable insights into scaling businesses and driving growth in challenging markets.Following his time at Uber, Mike co-founded and led Kaddy, a B2B marketplace. Under his leadership as CEO, Kaddy was acquired for $34 million within three years. Mike also brings over 20 years of investment experience, including numerous direct and indirect angel investments. His diverse background and extensive experience have made him a sought-after advisor and mentor, offering valuable insights to early stage businesses.
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.
Besart is a Principal on Antler’s team in NYC. Before Antler, he founded his own venture-backed startup, Chestr, the #1 Chrome shopping wishlist. Before Chestr, he worked at AnchorFree, the company behind the world's most popular VPNs: Hotspot Shield and VPN Super. During college, Besart interned in VC at Citi Ventures and a16z. He’s incredibly excited to support NYC founders full-time with Antler.