Antler has been on the top spot of PitchBook’s leaderboard as the most active early-stage VC firm for a few years now. While we don’t invest to win rankings—it's great to see that the scale of the global infrastructure to support founders from at inception stage is being recognized.
Here is an overview of the 2024 rankings Antler is leading, along with insights from our Partners across the globe on where capital is flowing and what the smartest founders are focusing on—and why the best time to build is always now.
Pitchbook: Most active Venture Capital firm globally
PitchBook's Global league tables: 2024 Annual ranks Antler as the most active Venture Capital firm globally, alongside HongShan, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz. See all League Tables here.
Dealroom: Most Active Investor in AI Startups
Dealroom ranks Antler as the most active AI investor 2024, alongside Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), General Catalyst, Sequoia, and Khosla Ventures. Read more here.
Fintech News: Most Active Fintech Investor in Southeast Asia
Fintech News Singapore ranks Antler as one of the most active fintech investors in the region over the past two years, alongside XA Network, 500 Global, East Ventures, and Peak XV Partners. Read more here.
Crunchbase: Most Active Seed-Stage Investors
Crunchbase ranks Antler as the second most active seed-stage investor globally, alongside Y Combinator, Bpifrance, OKX Ventures, and a16z crypto. Led By A16Z, Active Investors Upped Their Game In 2024, by Johana Glasner.
Sifted: Most active investors in European Startups, H1 2024
Sifted lists Antler as the most active investor in H1 2024, alongside SFC Capital, Bpifrance, and Y Combinator. Read more here.
Opportunities for startups in the US in 2025
Antler is the most active investor in AI globally according to Dealroom. It's always hard to say how accurate these reports are (having been on the other end of bad data), but here is what I can say.
There are two things I am focused on funding right now:
1. AI infra and Applications of AI. I believe we now have most of what we need at the foundational model stage, and will continue to get better, cheaper, lighter and open-sourced foundational models. This leaves two layers I believe will accrue tremendous value:
First is the infra layer, MCP is a good example of the need for real orchestration, governance and observability for big companies to effectively role out AI internally - think TRUST as the main value prop. Huge companies will be built here as the AI native network paradigm is built over the next few decades.
The second is the application layer. I am seeing in our portfolio and externally magical companies being built that are creating immense value for their customers faster than I have ever seen. These companies in particular will be interesting from a VC perspective as they are really going to change what funding technology companies looks like. It's not clear whether these companies will need to ever really raise post Series A "growth" capital.
2. Re-industrialization of the United States. I could write at length here but my quick synopsis is for many critical international and domestic reasons the United States needs to make things again - both advanced technologies and also scaling up baseload industrial capacity.
After 30 years of slowly outsourcing our industrial capacity overseas we are going to have to rebuild the labor pool, the supply chains, the technical know how and the trust and alignment with end customers. Antler isn't a theme-based investor, we are always simply looking for the most aspirational and highest agency people in the world who want to pursue their lives' work. Despite that, I tend to think the highest agency people are probably working in or close to these two themes right now.
If that sounds like you - I want to meet and fund you.
Biggest opportunities for startups in Brazil in 2025?
Antler founders in Brazil are particularly excited about verticals that align with the country's evolving ecosystem and pressing needs. Renewable energy, especially in the Northeast, stands out as a promising area given its potential for hosting data centers and driving green technology solutions. Agtech also remains a key vertical, offering opportunities to innovate in Brazil’s globally significant agricultural sector. Additionally, verticals like fintech, edtech, healthtech, and AI applications are generating enthusiasm, especially those focused on solving real-world problems and achieving profitability in a challenging economic landscape.
Biggest challenges for Brazilian startup founders in 2025
Macroeconomic Headwinds: High interest rates and competing investment options like government bonds make fundraising more challenging.
Lengthy Fundraising Cycles: The shift to more thorough due diligence and cautious investing will require founders to be patient and well-prepared for longer timelines.
Competition in AI and Tech: While AI applications are an opportunity, staying competitive in this fast-evolving field will require agility, innovation, and access to talent.
Exit Limitations: The Brazilian market still lacks robust exit options like IPOs, which could impact founders’ ability to achieve liquidity events.
Sustainability Pressure: Founders will need to balance growth with a clear path to profitability, addressing investor demands while maintaining operational efficiency
Most exciting verticals in 2025?
AI Applications: Founders have significant opportunities to create vertical-specific AI solutions that enhance productivity and solve industry-specific challenges. This could range from urban services to agriculture and beyond.
Renewable Energy and Sustainability: The renewable energy sector in Brazil, particularly in the Northeast, presents opportunities for startups to innovate in green technologies and explore synergies with energy-intensive industries like data centers.
Agtech Innovation: Wih the agricultural sector still under-penetrated by technology, there’s ample room for solutions that improve productivity, sustainability, and efficiency.
Shift Toward Profitability: As investors focus on sustainability and profitability, founders with clear paths to financial success will be well-positioned to attract funding and scale.
M&A Activity: The ongoing consolidation trend offers opportunities for founders to align with larger players, enabling exits or strategic growth through partnerships, agricultural sector still under-penetrated by technology, there’s ample room for solutions that improve productivity, sustainability, and efficiency.
generated with ai based on an interview I just gave
Biggest opportunities for startups in the US, in 2025?
The opportunity is the same it has always been–the opportunity is to live your biggest life, to realize your potential, to have the impact you’ve always known you were capable of, and to have no regrets in attempting to do something truly meaningful for yourself and for the world. That has always been the opportunity of entrepreneurship, and the access to starting companies, the pathways to building great technology, the globalization of distribution–these are all accelerants and tailwinds to founders, and reasons why “now” is always the best time to build a company.
Most exciting verticals for US founders, in 2025?
First and foremost, I don’t over index toward any verticals. We recruit the smartest, most ambitious, and hardest working people we can find, and we let them tell us what the world needs. If we decide what’s important and what’s interesting, it’s more likely we follow other trends and hype cycles. The way to win, especially in the earliest inception stages, is to be countercyclical and counterintuitive, it’s to be right when others are wrong, you want to find things that the best people in the world see and believe in when others do not.
More broadly, there are a number of things I have been excited about for years that we continue to make progress toward. Two of them I’m personally passionate about are longevity and quantum computing. We’re closer to seeing massive leaps forward on longevity than we are on quantum – the science is there for extending healthspan and lifespan, but the physics isn’t quite there for quantum yet. When these two things see material progress, the world will be forever and irrevocably changed in every single dimension.
Despite what the media will tell you, it’s incredibly hard to raise capital. 23% of VC’s have vanished, LP’s are illiquid and unable to contribute cash at the same rate they once were, and the majority of dollars flowing into early stage VC are into mega multi-stage funds and into mega deals, namely in AI, and accounting for half of all capital deployed. For the mainstream founder, this means there’s both fewer investors to raise from and more competition to compete with while their businesses are most likely not a fit for a multi-stage firm or a mega round either.
Founders need to prioritize investor-founder fit. They need to build relationships over months, not weeks. They also can benefit from tight and consistent communications that demonstrate irrefutable progress. Also, some may disagree with me on this, but I think that the very early stages, a founder should focus on catalyzing strategic angels and customers as investors prior to going out to raise–having momentum in the round is valuable, but having people on your cap table who can create some borrowed credibility, distribution advantages, and a demonstration that the founder is not only able to get in the room, but also close, is immensely valuable in underwriting.
Most exciting verticals for startups in South East Asia, in 2025?
Founders in Southeast Asia are focusing on transformative themes that align with both regional challenges and global opportunities. Key areas gaining momentum include:
AI and Vertical Applications: AI continues to capture attention, particularly in vertical-specific use cases that address industry-specific challenges. Founders are building solutions in areas like enterprise productivity, compliance, and hyper-personalization, using AI to drive efficiency and unlock new business opportunities.
Enterprise Solutions: With enterprise software spending projected to surge, startups are focusing on areas like process mining and automation and AI-driven customer service evolution, addressing the operational inefficiencies of businesses across the region.
Fintech: Fintech remains a critical vertical, with emphasis on AI-augmented financial services, compliance and security tools, and crypto infrastructure. These solutions are designed to streamline workflows and drive financial inclusion in a region with a large underbanked population.
Sustainability and Climate Tech: Founders are prioritizing next-generation energy storage, agritech and food security, and circular economy enablers. These areas address Southeast Asia’s unique environmental challenges while aligning with global climate action priorities.
Biggest challenges for startup founders South East Asia, in 2025?
The biggest challenges founders in Southeast Asia will face in 2025 boil down to three interconnected issues:
Fragmentation vs. Scale: Southeast Asia’s diversity is both its strength and its Achilles’ heel. Startups often get stuck in the trap of over-localizing for fragmented markets without solving for true regional scalability. The challenge in 2025 will be for founders to think beyond their home market from day one—building products with modular adaptability instead of constantly reinventing for each country.
Data Monopoly Lock-In: As AI adoption accelerates, the real competition won’t just be between startups but between those with access to proprietary datasets and those without. Founders will need to fight upstream for exclusive partnerships, industry alliances, or creative ways to crowdsource quality data to compete with incumbents and data-rich platforms.
The Death of "Sexy Tech" Without Substance: Investors and customers are increasingly disillusioned by buzzwords without tangible results. Startups working in AI, fintech, or sustainability will face intense scrutiny to prove real-world impact and measurable ROI—not just potential. Founders must stop leaning on hype cycles and focus on delivering bottom-line outcomes or risk losing trust altogether.
These challenges demand a shift in mindset from founders—less about iterating for survival and more about designing for dominance in an increasingly competitive and skeptical landscape.
Most exciting verticals for startups in India, in 2025?
AI will obviously continue to be the dominant theme, and 2025 will see more nuances:
From B2B to Consumer: So far, most of activity in India has been around copilots for enterprises or automation of code generation - not surprising given India’s strengths in SaaS and IT services. But we think a huge wave of innovation is coming, designed for the Indian consumer, often in local languages: across health, education, financial services, productivity, etc. Part of this will involve SLM (small language models) built in India
AI living on the edge: We will see more AI happening at the edge devices, a largely untapped space with promising applications in manufacturing (automated assembly lines, real-time defect detection), security and surveillance, patient monitoring, traffic management, and more.
Outcomes not software: We will move from SaaS with AI wrappers or basic copilots, to completely new ways of reimagining workflows for any function inside businesses. The lines between software and services will blue, and we will see more agentic AI platforms that sell outcomes, not software.
Deep Tech: One of the biggest transformations is that India is now emerging as a place for cutting-edge R&D, not just services or commodity software. Across areas like robotics, space tech, precision hardware, quantum computing, or defense tech or even core semiconductors,, we are seeing a significant number of founders take the plunge in ways they didn’t earlier - because the ecosystem (talent, hardware supply chain, funding, IP development) is getting stronger.
Healthier living: As a massive new upper-middle class of Indian consumers appears, they are increasingly conscious of their health given environmental and quality of life challenges in urban India. We see many more founders in recent cohorts focusing on these issues: from senior care at home, to better diagnostics, mental health, clean label brands, and devices to monitor health, air quality, etc.
DPI - India’s Superpower: Growth of applications on top of India’s world-leading Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) - the population-scale infrastructure built with a public-private partnership - examples being ONDC, UPI, Account Aggregator, etc. will mature further.
Most exciting verticals for startups in the UK, in 2025?
We’ve recently published a Call for Founders, highlighting why this is a pivotal moment to build in the UK. With the country at an inflection point, we see vast opportunities across manufacturing, AI-driven healthcare, and financial services, while the race to net zero is spurring innovation in climate tech. Amidst these transformative shifts, one of the most promising opportunities lies in pioneering Fintech 2.0—further consolidating London’s status as the global capital of fintech.
Founders advancing agentic AI in finance. Why? The future of fintech lies in products that harness agentic AI for hyper-personalised financial planning optimising investments, savings, and credit decisions in real-time.
Founders specialising in decentralised finance. Why? AI and decentralised finance (DeFi) are set to transform payments, lending, and investment—reducing costs and expanding financial inclusion. Whether through agentic or person-to-person payments, change is rapidly approaching.
Founders with deep expertise in stablecoins or tokenisation. Why? Tokenisation and stablecoin-powered fintech can democratise access to high-value markets, providing financial autonomy through transparent blockchain solutions.
Founders analysing transaction data. Why? Developing models to assess real-time transaction data, we can identify unusual patterns and prevent fraud, safeguarding financial institutions and their customers.
Biggest opportunities for startups in the Nordics, in 2025?
In AI, the time of foundational models has past and these are now intelligent and affordable – the time to build application layer is now. We are yet to see the first Consumer Gen AI breakthrough application, but everything is in place for it to be built – what will it be? Therapist AI? Coach AI?
Biggest challenges for Nordic founders in 2025?
Even though the AI bubble is inflating quickly, don’t underestimate how important it is to have actual traction – meaning paying, returning users. Too many founders think they can put AI in their pitch deck and raise a round, but investors are still risk-averse after the 2022/23 downturn and want to see real numbers.
Most exciting startup verticals in the Nordics in 2025?
The first Consumer Gen AI applications.
Building for the real workforce – tools for plumbers, electricians, etc – leveraging modern technologies.
Real world tech – hardware, brick and mortar, connecting offline, etc – the more AI becomes omnipresent, the more we will connect with the real world again.
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