Founder Stories

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 week, we spoke to Sophie Jokelson, co-founder and CMO of Cove.

Cove is a coliving company putting renters first. They make it easier, faster and more flexible to rent comfortable homes at honest prices. Their flatshare rooms, studios and apartments are hand-picked in top city locations, thoughtfully furnished and include utilities. The bookings process is digital and hassle-free, and the community of 'Coveys' get access to a network of like-minded people as well as exclusive events and perks.

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Bahadir embodies the purest definition of entrepreneurship. From his early days in Turkey to living in the States in his youth and suddenly taking the leap and emigrating to Singapore, he has never given up on his dream: having a Global impact and improving the lives of millions. He left us thinking that we all have a role to play and that it is never too late to start dreaming big and change the world. Besides living and breathing entrepreneurship, he is a philosopher at heart, and ended this interview with life lessons that will stay with us during our entrepreneurial journey!

A conversation with Tudor Mihailescu and Valentin Kassarnig, co-founders of SpeechifAI, Antler Amsterdam portfolio company.

The founder’s series takes a deep dive into the journey of Antler portfolio company founders and sheds light on the space they are building in. This week, we spoke to Mira Gleisberg, CEO & co-founder of RespiQ.

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We love our visionaries because of their captivating and provoking stories. A visionary is extraordinary because of his/her unparalleled level of energy and enthusiasm. Charlotte filled the room with joy and electric energy from the first second, making it impossible for us not to smile. Her positivity and drive were contagious and made us realize that inner fire is the most crucial trait anyone can possess. What a force of nature Charlotte is!

A conversation with Aleks Orlic, former co-founder of Penta

Wisnu is one of the humblest of our visionaries. During our conversation, he never mentioned that he just raised $5 million or that his tools were used by 850,000 workers across Indonesia. Wisnu doesn’t care about impressive numbers; he simply wants to create a positive impact around him. The calm and optimistic energy surrounding him is magical and made us forget all our everyday life concerns.

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 week, we spoke to Jiawen Ngeow, co-founder of DayOne.

DayOne is revolutionising offline operations for stores by providing a turnkey solution that optimises and streamlines frontline staff communication and collaboration. Their mission is to make offline businesses as easy to run as online ones.

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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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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 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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Watch the video to get to know the team behind BrightBee - an Antler-backed AdTech startup that continuously explores the best audience to fully optimize social media ads using Machine Learning.

Marco Financial, "the first tech-enabled financing platform built for small and medium-sized Latin American exporters," announced in TechCrunch that it has secured $26M in funding and credit that will enable the company to address the $1.5T global trade finance gap that disproportionately impacts small-and medium-sized (SME) businesses. Marco supports SMEs based in Latin America, where a $350 billion trade finance gap blocks many exporters from participating in the US market. The funding includes an equity round, led by Antler and Struck Capital, and a credit facility underwritten by Arcadia Funds, LLC.

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Sehreen NoorAli, an accomplished former education technology executive and  diplomat, joined Antler in September 2019 determined to improve medical care  navigability for parents raising young children with health conditions.  Sehreen was intimately familiar with the industry's shortcomings and its  lack of technological infrastructure. "As a parent, you're in the  driver's seat of your child's health," Sehreen explains. "There's a  moment you realize that you only see a pediatrician every so often.  Ultimately, a parent is in charge of a child's healthcare journey. This was  a pain point I felt acutely as my daughter was diagnosed with a condition that  required considerable therapies."

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The founder series takes a deep dive into the journey of Antler portfolio company founders and sheds light on the space they are building in. This week, we spoke to Anna Ratala, Co-Founder & CEO of Zvook.

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The internet gave people a place to learn about sex autonomously, not just through family, friends and traditional education. Insight into how others feel and think about sex has created more openness around the topic. With this came a deeper understanding of sexual psychology, and as Sachin Raoul and Robbie Coomber started to look into this rather taboo topic, they discovered that billions of people were suffering in silence.

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Meet Mast! Joy, Rob and Henry all joined Antler UK two weeks before the UK government announced the lockdown. Apart from informal discussions they had never brainstormed together in our offices. Everything happened remotely and they've never looked back!

Different nationalities, different backgrounds and different interests. Rob, the CEO, has seven years of experience working in Risk for Barclays in London and Frankfurt. Emmanuel, the CTO, has spent eight years in Academia. After his PhD in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Sorbonne University in Paris, he joined University College London (UCL) as a Research Associate focusing on automatic persuasion methods for behaviour change. They probably would not have met if it wasn't for Antler.

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Environmentally conscious, commitment phobic, or just indecisive? In a market research survey conducted by Lab42 published by Adweek, most millenials today aged 18-38 prefer renting over purchasing goods. Today, thanks to the rise of rental subscription services ranging from clothing to furniture, tools to technology, millennials can now pick from best in class offerings and incur minimum cost for maximum gain, all while saving the environment. How's that for a mission?

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Chris Fanucchi is no stranger to traveling for work. As the co-founder of beverage companies KOIA, a plant protein drink now available at Whole Foods nationwide, and Limitless, a lightly caffeinated sparkling water acquired by Keurig Dr. Pepper in January 2020, Chris spent years traveling the country as he built two successful businesses from scratch. But Chris encountered a persistent problem as he traversed state lines: he constantly struggled to maintain healthy eating.

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Meet the Yayloh team! Nikhil Shikarkhane, CTO and co-founder, is a full-stack engineer and deep learning specialist as well as a serial entrepreneur. At Antler, he met his co-founder and CEO Sophie Aubard, who had the same entrepreneurial mindset but who could complement his skills well with deep knowledge about how to run and scale big businesses after having worked for big malls in the retail space.

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Vamstar has used their artificial intelligence platform to develop a risk-based scoring framework, helping healthcare systems across Europe better prepare and plan for the months ahead by understanding gaps in their supply chains.

Women make up 50% of the population but only 11% of capital is invested in female-led companies, even though data shows that diverse teams perform better. Antler wants to enable more women to launch and lead companies. Click to read the startup stories of 5 female founders and why they decided to become entrepreneurs.

Whoever said Science was organized knowledge most likely had a point. What is less organized is the immense volume of research that is annually conducted. 2.3 trillion US Dollars are spent globally on Research and Development in 2019. More shockingly, it still takes pharmaceuticals approximately 15 years to bring a drug to the market - despite the given funds. What if we told you there was a way to reduce not just costs but also time by up to 25%?

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Math, Physics, Chemistry... Chances are high, it is one of these subjects that embodies the source of all evil for many students. The vast majority of parents who want to help their children excel in school and connect them with a private tutor are financially unable to do so. Enlight Ed CEO Artur Lorincz and CCO Sartou Djibril are dedicated to put an end to students falling behind in the curriculum solely because of the lack of access to educational help. Antler Amsterdam's Yingzhao Zhu got to chat with Artur and Sartou about their leading-edge approach to ending this battle of frustration.

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If you were told that something as elementary, yet complex, as data has pushed oil from its throne as the world's most valuable resource, would you believe it? Data has indeed become such an essential part of our everyday lives that it is impossible for many to envision a world without it. Self-driving cars, diagnostic in medicine, security systems -  they all rely on labeling data so it can be interpreted and decisions can be made accordingly. But what does data labeling actually mean? Put simply, it means that a computer is able to tell a dog apart from a car in images. Applied to medicine, this could mean that the computer was previously told what cancerous cells look like. Later, it is able to detect similar cells in new patients without the time-consuming manual reviews. The greatest challenge with data labeling is the unfathomable volume that it comes in. But no need to despair, LabelFuse is coming to the rescue, so beware.

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"You have 3 months to start your company from scratch. You have to find your co-founder, pick a problem, and validate your solution with customers. If all  goes well, you'll get 3 more months to complete building your MVP and generate traction before you pitch to investors. Ready? Go!"

Here we are, 2020. New year, new decade, new you right? Your resolution this year is the same as every year, to eat healthier and have a better diet. You've got the brown rice, chicken and green veg meal prepped for the next month and you're feeling good that you're going to stick to it this year. Thing is...What if that brown rice, chicken and veg is actually not responding well with your body?

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Big companies, small companies, political parties - everybody spends large  amounts of money on digital advertising every day, trying to increase their  brand awareness and sales. However, some of them should not have to, given  that they already have large, loyal communities that are happy to support  their cause for free - yet they don't. Why is that?

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As the medical field keeps evolving with new emerging technologies, the future of medical care is prepared for constant and rapid change with advancements poised to make the industry even more human-focused than it is currently. Better trained physicians, improved accuracy in disease targeting coupled with improving medical standards globally have rendered most diseases no longer life-threatening.

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In the coming weeks, we will be introducing our first Amsterdam cohort's startups. Today we will hear from the founders of RespiQ, a startup that is building a cutting edge, patent-pending technology based on proven science.

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I don't consider myself as much of a risk taker, but in summer 2019, I knew it was time. I quit my job in order to become an entrepreneur at Antler, without knowing what to build or with whom. My expectations were to work hard and develop a lot. Coming from the business side, predominantly from global organizations, I was also expecting to learn a lot in the tech field. Boy, was I in for a ride!

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For those who have supported me along the way and those who are simply curious, I'd like to share my journey since July - from joining Antler Singapore with nothing but an idea, to being in Islamabad and just over a month away from launching Capture, the app enabling you to track, reduce and remove your climate footprint.

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Of the 12 companies Antler showcased at its inaugural Demo Day in Sydney, five were represented by female CEOs.

One in ten stores Globally are empty, and in the Nordics alone there’s over 20 000 vacant spaces. xNomad is marketplace for short-term retail space, the ‘Airbnb for pop-ups’. Watch the full video to learn more about the startup that was founded in the inaugural Antler Stockholm program by Jonathan Haralambakis.

Meet the Done team! Malin Granlund, CEO, and Alek Åström CTO, explain how they want to revive an industry that has been the most complained about in Sweden for over twelve years (Swedish Consumer Agency, 2017).

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Antler is in the business of enabling the world's most exceptional people to build technology companies that solve real problems, and have a strong impact on the world. Last year we had the chance to start working with some truly amazing entrepreneurs: Wisnu Nugrahadi, Margana Mohamad and Dimas Pramudya. In only twelve months, they have built an incredibly fast growing company working with 150,000 agents across Indonesia. So what makes Sampingan special?

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‍Mattrvest are all about helping people plan, spend and save for what "mattrs" to them. Our Amsterdam team sat down with two of the three team members, Mayur Singh and Diane Delava while they were in town to discuss how the team met, why they decided to form Mattrvest and what their current go-to-market strategy looks like.

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Cognicept is a service layer and platform from autonomous robotics to help improve failure rates and serviceability of autonomous systems by providing tele-operated, human in the loop support.

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"I have evolved into a better version of myself... I am so proud that I took the leap to launch my own business. I worked hard for something that I am passionate about and enjoyed every second of it."

The most common question I've been asked is "How does the co-founder matching process work?" Here are my thoughts.

Antler Sydney entrepreneur Siobhan O'Toole says, rather than holding another Women's Day event, take action to help women succeed by holding open the door.

The “glocalization” of two essential services will be the most important for the next phase of human growth. There are two basic services that need a cross-city facilitation, and they require integration and consolidation. These are payments and Mobility.

Alright, let's say you're going on a trip to Asia and plan on hitting 5 different countries. You know you're gonna need to sort out a mobile connection to the local company in each new place.

Chore.

But, imagine if you could simply get your local SIMs before you even start your trip? So that once you land you are automatically connected. Before you've even finished breakfast in your New York apartment, in 5 minutes you've sorted out mobile connectivity for your adventure to the East.

This is the aim of Airalo co-founder and Antler alumni, Bahadir Özdemir. He plans to turn the traditional roaming market completely on its head through new eSIM technology.

Bahadir stopped by the Antler Amsterdam office for a quick chat with our marketing manager Hayden on the state of eSIM technology and the challenges in being the trailblazer for this emerging space:

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Zoe Hall, Director of Marketing for the newly opened New York location, looks to fully communicate the advantages of Antler’s unique approach by sharing an illustrative encounter with Anna Ratala and Malik Alimoekhamedov, current co-founders of Zvook and Antler alumi.

The entrepreneurial journey can be a combination of structure and chaos, success and failure. But most would agree that above all it one of ongoing learning.

Wisnu Nugrahadi is a founder from Antler's inaugural program in Singapore from July 2018. After the first eight weeks into the program, he and his co-founders Margana Mohamad and Dimas Pramudya created Sampingan.