Go further, faster and secure funding in just 4 weeks with Antler in Vietnam
Antler is where exceptional founders come to move faster
Work with a team of ex-founders turned VCs, who’ve built, scaled, and exited companies ourselves. Join a truly global platform spanning 30+ hubs, 1,500+ startups, and billions in follow-on capital raised.
Applications are open on a rolling basis.
Ho Chi Minh
Kickstart your VC funding
Get early backing with Pre-Seed investment and ongoing support through follow-on funding up to Series C.
Receive dedicated coaching
Get hands-on mentorship from experienced founders and operators who’ve built and scaled successful startups.
Partner with a global investor
Scale your startup with a global partner that offers expertise and connections in over 30 locations worldwide.
A clear advantage from day zero
Join a curated network to find co-founders who complement your skills and vision.
How Antler works
We attract top teams at an early stage, and invest in validated business models while providing hands-on and tailored support from the heart of South East Asia.
How we invest
Maximizing your success–from being your earliest backer to a long-term capital partner who provides follow-on funding and access to top VCs.
1. Initial Investment
If your startup passes our investment committee, we will invest $120,000 for 12% of your company via a SAFE agreement. This initial capital empowers you to build your product, attract early customers, and prepare for your next funding round.
2. Follow-on Funding (Next 9 Months)
As you raise capital from external institutional investors, we will match 50% of the amount raised, up to $250,000, at the latest valuation.
Example: If you raise $500,000 externally, we’ll invest an additional $250,000, bringing your total early-stage funding to $870,000 ($120,000 initial + $500,000 external + $250,000 matching).
This matching mechanism accelerates your growth while keeping terms founder-friendly.
3. Growth-stage Funding (Series A to C)
• Access our global network of investors through Antler’s Portfolio Showcase.
• Potential investment of up to $10 million to fuel your growth through Series C.
• Ongoing support to refine your strategy and prepare for future fundraising.
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The Residency
Once onboarded, you will have access to the Antler office in Ho Chi Minh city for a 4-to-8-week sprint. The faster you move, the quicker we can make a decision. During this time, you’ll collaborate with experienced mentors, refine your business model, and build alongside other driven founders. Whether you’re starting from just an idea or scaling your existing venture, our residency flexibly equips you with the resources, network, and capital to accelerate your growth.
DOWNLOAD THE FULL INFORMATION PACK BELOW:
How to apply
Apply anytime throughout the year and discuss your startup ambitions. We’ll guide you through our simple and transparent application process. Our goal is to understand your vision, explore how we can help, and determine the best path forward for your startup.
Powering builders with Capital and Perks
- $250K in Technical Credits & Perks AI & Cloud Infrastructure
- Free Office Space beyond the residency
Antler gives you not only the capital and coaching but also the technical firepower to turn bold ideas into venture-scale companies. Access GPU credits, advanced AI tooling, and cloud services from top partners to validate and scale faster.
Bahadir Özdemir
Co-founder
Airalo
Jake Vu
Co-founder
Vucar
Hanh Do
Co-Founder
BUYO
Antler was our first investor—an incubator of optimists. Joining Antler wasn’t just about funding; it was about surrounding ourselves with people who see potential, take risks, and build. For anyone wondering if they should take the leap with Antler, my answer is an optimistic YES. There’s a big chance it could change your life, and I would do it all over again if I could.
What separates Antler from from the rest is that they really care about you from the very first day and they will support you continuously in your startup journey. They have always put in the time and effort to help my company grow.
Antler has put us on a fast-paced growth journey and opened up many opportunities for us to learn, connect, and realize our aspirations.
We’ve helped put hundreds of founders on a pathway to — global success
Fuelled by a passion that goes beyond traditional investing, we exist to increase our founders’ speed and maximise their success rate in solving important problems.
10,000+
Founders supported
1500+
Portfolio companies
30%
Companies with > 1 female founder
2018
Year Antler started
#1
Most active VC investor globally
24
Offices globally
FREQUENTLY —ASKED QUESTIONS
We back entrepreneurs from day zero—even before they have a product or any paying customers. We believe that it all starts with people. By focusing on the founder and the team, rather than a specific industry or an idea, we identify talent and help them succeed in founding and scaling great companies.
Additionally, Antler doesn’t just provide funding—we offer hands-on mentorship and give you an unfair advantage through our global network of founders, advisors, and investors, helping you get from zero to one in the shortest time possible.
Teams: We welcome teams with at least two co-founders with a startup idea, or a pre-revenue product. Go from launch to being a VC-backed startup in as little as 4 weeks. Starting from the stage of your startup, you can get bespoke hands-on mentorship from experienced founders and operators who’ve built and scaled successful startups before receiving investment directly from us.
Solo founders: Looking for a co-founder to launch your startup idea? We bring together an exclusive group of ambitious people to explore ideas together. Meet, learn, and co-create with exceptional builders. Join us to turn your vision into reality. You just need to have a strong drive to build high-growth tech startups, as well as, the skills relevant to early stage business building.
No, you don’t need to have a fully formed idea to apply. We work with teams and founders from ideation, validation and inception stage in our residency. That said, we especially value those who have a strong sense of their founder-market fit—a deep understanding of sectors or industries where they want to make an impact. More important than having a solution is having a few problem statements you’re passionate about solving. If you have the curiosity and drive to build, Antler will help you refine these ideas, explore opportunities, and turn them into a scalable business.
Yes, even if you have an existing team or have already raised some funding, Antler can help accelerate your growth. We provide additional capital, strategic mentorship, and access to our global network of investors and industry experts to help you scale faster and reach your next milestones more efficiently.
Yes, we encourage founders to join our residency program in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam for a period of 4 to 8 weeks. It provides invaluable in-person access to mentorship, networking, and collaborative sessions with other founders. Being physically present also ensures you can fully engage with Antler’s resources and community.
Upon a successful application, you will receive a confirmation email and our Scouting team will review and reach out regarding your application within 2 days to guide you through the next steps. The screening process will take about two weeks after your initial application.
Differing from other Antler locations, we are accepting teams on a rolling basis to the residency in Vietnam. This means teams are welcomed to join us in Ho Chi Minh city anytime throughout the year once they are ready to commit full-time to building a startup.
Antler invests in a wide range of sectors, including fintech, healthcare, SaaS, e-commerce, and more. Globally, we’ve backed over 1,000 companies across diverse industries, with a focus on those leveraging technology to scale and build innovative solutions. More importantly, we look for founders addressing pressing problems with scalable, high-impact ideas that can succeed on a global stage.
Antler’s portfolio companies have collectively raised hundreds of millions in follow-on funding, with over 80% of them raising external capital within 12 months. Select portfolio companies making strong headway include Airalo, Reebelo, bluesheets, Volopay, and Staffinc.
Ready to build and launch your startup? Apply now
Join Antler and instantly 10x your network: connect with industry leaders, validate your idea and scale your business with a global network of entrepreneurs.
OUR TEAM
Meet the people dedicated to our founders’ success.
As Co-founder and Managing Partner Asia, Jussi works with a global team dedicated to building the most defining technology companies of tomorrow. Jussi leads Antler’s investments in the APAC region and supports founders in building and scaling their businesses, especially with growth and fundraising. He has over a decade of experience across different industries at Nokia, McKinsey, Deloitte and Morgan Stanley.
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Originally from Sweden, Erik is a seasoned entrepreneur who has founded five ventures, including Zalora in Vietnam. Currently Partner at Antler, he leads the firm's investments and operations in Vietnam. Also known as 'Shark Erik', he is a judge and investor on Shark Tank Vietnam. Prior to this, he was an investment banker investment banker in London's Square Mile and a PE analyst at Vietnam Investments Group. His entrepreneurial journey has earned him recognition as one of Sweden's tech super talents, as recognised by Dagens Industri. Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Erik is also fluent in Vietnamese.
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With over 25 years of experience in tech and startups across Asia, Winnie is a seasoned operator with leadership roles at Alibaba, PropertyGuru, and Carousell. Currently Partner in Singapore, where Antler is headquartered, she shares responsibility for the firm's operations in Southeast Asia.
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Hiro brings a unique mix of entrepreneurial and investing experience to the Antler team.
He co-founded WALLEX, a B2B FX and cross-border payments platform, and grew it into a regional fintech player before its acquisition by M-DAQ in 2022.
Before that, he spent several years in venture capital with Strive VC (formerly GREE) and Yello Mobile, after starting out as a software engineer at Macquarie Group. Along the way, he backed one of Indonesia’s largest e-commerce companies, Bukalapak, at the Series A stage before it became a unicorn and went public.
Fluent in English, Japanese, and Indonesian, Hiro has often acted as a bridge between Japan and Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystems.
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Khanh joined Antler straight out of University as an intern and proved her worth from day 1. She has been an integral part of running recruitment, our program as well as portfolio management from our first cohort. Antler Vietnam has continuosly grown it's intake, and support of, female founders and Khanh's personal mission is to help uplift Vietnam's talented female entrepreneurs to a global stage.
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Linh is an Investment and Portfolio Associate at Antler Vietnam. He focuses on equipping portfolio companies with the resources for growth and fundraising, while also scouting for promising founders across Southeast Asia primarily for pre-seed investments. Prior to Antler, Linh spent three years in management consulting at Dalberg Advisors, Bain, and BCG. His experience spans across strategizing innovative investment mechanisms for philanthropies and impact investors, and supporting retail corporates in Vietnam with their commercialization strategies and product segmentation.
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Ha is responsible for Antler’s branding and communications while identifying passionate founders and nurturing promising startups across South East Asia. Before joining Antler, she was the Marketing Manager for Vincere.io, a B2B SaaS solution for recruitment agencies of all sizes. Ha played a vital role in developing Vincere's brand presence and driving revenue, which helped Vincere to be successfully acquired by The Access Group UK.
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Eugene is an Investment & Portfolio Manager at Antler Southeast Asia, where he focuses on pre-seed and seed investments across AI/ML, developer tools, and vertical SaaS. He brings a unique operator-investor lens from his time as Product Lead at Wagely, where he scaled the user base, product, and established the company's growth function to Series A. Prior to this, Eugene built and launched BCG's global fintech intelligence platform and incubated corporate ventures at FutureLabs Ventures and Wright Partners, including dealcierge.io which was recently acquired.
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Keith heads the Finance function in Antler Southeast Asia and is in charge of the financial and tax reporting and compliance of the SEA fund and the local Antler entity. He has more than 20 years of working experience in both the public and private sectors covering industries from real estate, sports, defence and research. Prior to joining Antler, he spent 13 years with a multi-national real estate company which specializes in fund and asset management, real estate development and resort operations.
EXPAND BIO
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Antler portfolio companies raise capital from other leading VCs
