Toronto

We Help Founders build —great companies

Antler founders are turning their visions into reality—tackling pressing problems, creating jobs, and unlocking their personal potential. As the world’s issues become more complex, founders are more needed than ever to solve them. What are you waiting for?

Antler in Canada works with solo founders who are looking to find potential co-founders as well as preformed teams that are already in operation.

We Help Founders build —great companies

Antler founders are turning their visions into reality—tackling pressing problems, creating jobs, and unlocking their personal potential. As the world’s issues become more complex, founders are more needed than ever to solve them. What are you waiting for?

Antler in Canada works with solo founders who are looking to find potential co-founders as well as preformed teams that are already in operation.

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Find Your Co-Founder

Join a community of ambitious builders. Connect with like-minded entrepreneurs who complement your strengths, share your vision, and are ready to build something big—together.

Validate and Build Fast

Turn your idea into a real venture. With expert coaching, a supportive founder community, and resources from day one, you’ll test, iterate, and launch quickly.

Build and Pitch Your Company

Start building what matters. Talk to users, develop your MVP, and sharpen your go-to-market strategy. At the end of the program, you’ll pitch to Antler’s Investment Committee for a chance to receive CAD $150,000 in pre-seed funding in exchange for 10% equity.

Scale With Global Support

If you secure investment, you’ll join Antler’s portfolio and unlock access to a global founder network, fundraising support, and hands-on guidance as you scale. From Toronto to the world, we’ll back you beyond the first check.

Who Is Antler For?

Antler is for founders at the earliest stage—whether you're starting with just an idea, looking for a co-founder, or already part of a team. We back ambitious individuals who are ready to build from day zero. You'll be surrounded by a community of 60–80 driven peers, with the resources, mentorship, and capital to help you go from concept to company.

The Selection Process

We review thousands of applications from individual founders and early-stage teams, selecting the top 2% to join our Toronto Residency. We look for a strong combination of founder DNA—grit, drive, and clarity of vision—alongside exceptional skills in product, sales, or domain expertise. Whether you're still exploring an idea or already building, the Residency is designed to unlock value at every stage of the founder journey.

Download our information pack:

The Residency

The Antler Residency in Toronto is a high-velocity sprint built to help founders focus, execute, and reach key milestones. Each week, you'll define your top priorities and leverage the Antler community, expert coaching, and in-person energy to move your company forward. Alongside structured programming, you’ll also benefit from office hours, guest speakers, and curated events designed to spark insights and build lasting relationships with other exceptional founders—all from our downtown Toronto office.

The Antler Canada Investment

If you pass our Investment Committee, Antler invests CAD $150,000 in your company for 10% equity through a SAFE.

Post-investment, you’ll become part of our Toronto portfolio and gain ongoing access to Antler’s global network, hands-on advisory support, and founder resources. We work closely with you on go-to-market execution, customer growth, and preparing for future fundraising. As you progress, we’ll connect you with downstream investors across Canada and globally, helping you raise your next round with confidence.

Who can join Antler?

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For Individuals

Looking for a co-founder?

For individuals who are looking for a co-founder to build and start something new.

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.

For Individuals

Looking for a co-founder?

For individuals who are looking for a co-founder to build and start something new.

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.

Meet an Antler partner Thursday at 1PM CET

Join us for an open session with one of our partners to discuss how we work with founders and what to expect

Join now

“As a global fund, Antler’s access to networks is unmatched—I’d estimate that 1 in every 3 dollars Sapyen has raised so far is tied, directly or indirectly, to Antler’s introductions or influence. I’ve leaned heavily on Antler at critical junctures, and they’ve come through without exception, every single time. Undoubtedly one of the best institutional investors on my cap table.”

Ashwin Ramachandran
CEO | Sapyen

Antler has played such a huge role in our growth. The team at Antler Canada believed in us at a time when all we had was the vision. They treated us like people first - that’s why we joined. They believed in our ability to figure things out as we go. They helped to give us the confidence to continue on our journey despite the barriers certainly we’d encounter. THAT’S what early-stage investment should look like. And that’s why Antler is among the best early-stage accelerators & VC funds in the world.

Tanika McLeod
Co-founder
MinuteSkill

When you think about Antler, you should think of more than a fund to start your business or a three months accelerator program. Antler is an affiliation that translates to professional, continuous, and dedicated support, mentorship, and connection to a global network of world-class entrepreneurs for the lifespan of your company.

Pooya Mamaghani
Co-founder
Genuine Taste

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.

What visa/citizenship requirements do I need to join Antler’s CAD Residency?

You can apply to our Residency if you hold any type of valid CAD work visa.

Which industries do you invest in?

We are industry agnostic and invest across all technology sectors.

How often do I have to be in the office? What does “full-time” mean?

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.

What happens after the eight week Residency?

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 🔑.

What stage do you invest in?

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.

Does everyone get to pitch to the Investment Committee?

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.

Do we have to take the Antler investment?

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.

Apply today to

—Antler Canada

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We 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.

Pathzero

Pathzero enables asset owners, fund managers and the operating entities they invest in to calculate and share emissions data on one secure technology platform.

Chexy

Tenant-facing payments platform that allows renters to earn rewards & build credit on rent

Ezee Assist

Platform service to make knowledge accessible to franchisee owners to streamline their operations and train staff

zofiQ

zofiQ eliminates technical debt by augmenting your technical staff with our industry leading ML and AI so your business can innovate with freedom.

NetNow

Solution to embed B2B payments & financing solutions like BNPL

Mycroft

Autonomous security and privacy platform

Antler portfolio companies raise capital from other leading VCs

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Meet the Antler Canada team

Mike Abbott
Partner

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.

Naman Budhdeo
General Partner

Naman has founded and exited 3 travel technology businesses. He has built original small teams from inception and growing them to over 700 people. His companies were able to grow with great people building great products using technology. Developing people, products and technology to rapidly scale business and leading to successful financial exits for investors are the skills and experience Naman brings to Antler Canada.

Bernie Li
General Partner

Bernie combines his experience as a founder and investor to support entrepreneurs. He co-founded a technology based startup in the solar sector that grew from its homebase in Toronto, to over two hundred employees with an additional office in San Francisco, serving customers across the USA and Ontario. That company was VC backed and had a successful exit to a NYSE-listed acquirer. His experience as an investor includes working with premier VC funds, in addition to angel investing. Helping entrepreneurs think about value creation and building relationships with the capital markets are ways that Bernie enjoys working with founders.

Tammer Kamel
General Partner

Tammer was the co-founder and former CEO of Toronto-based financial data platform Quandl, a FinTech startup that was acquired by Nasdaq in 2018. He brings deep operator experience to Antler Canada, having built and exited Quandl, a venture-backed data platform serving global financial institutions.

Amy Zaghloul
Director (Middle East)

Amy is a Director Capital at Antler, she combines her global experience in Investor Relations and M&A to support fundraising for Funds and early-stage companies. Most recently, she led Investor Relations efforts at a Venture Fund focusing on the capital raising process for the Fund as well as providing strategic advisory to portfolio companies on growth initiatives. Previously, she spent several years in Investment Banking in New York focusing on M&A and capital raising projects in Healthcare and Technology. Amy enjoys building relationships and attracting strategic investors to help exceptional entrepreneurs build impactful businesses. She is an advisor to a mental healthcare start-up and sits on the board of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association.

Shambhavi Mishra
Associate Partner

Shambhavi has led several cross-border venture investments in the early/growth stages for a leading Corporate VC/Family office. She has executed high-value venture capital investments and exits globally across Consumer Tech, Education, Gaming and Enterprise SaaS across US, Canada, EU and SE Asia. She brings a hands-on operator mindset for portfolio growth, a strong network of global VCs, accelerators, and institutions, and has helped numerous companies with strategy and GTM to expand into global markets.  

Her previous work experience includes management consulting at McKinsey and IBM. She has led several international consulting engagements for Fortune 500 companies toward global expansion and scaling.

She is passionate about gender inclusion, DEI in entrepreneurship and actively supports women, non-binary and underrepresented founders.

Alex Wright
Director of Finance

Alex is a relationship-driven finance professional with expertise in financial controls and project management. He is a Chartered Accountant trained through Ernst & Young as an Assurance Manager where he oversaw multinational public company audits. Recently, he gained senior leadership experience at a not-for-profit focused on founder education. Alex’s passion for entrepreneurship began at Queen’s University where he was an Ambassador for the Centre for Social Impact - a student group dedicated to social innovation and entrepreneurship.

Daphne McLarty
Senior Program Manager

Daphne is a former strategic startup operator and Techstars consultant. Former Deals & Consulting Manager at PwC. She is also a certified yoga instructor.

Alexa Goldhar
Investment Associate

Alexa specialized in entrepreneurship during her MBA and holds a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences. She is passionate about the healthcare space and has over four years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, focusing on product management and strategy. Her background blends scientific knowledge with business execution, and she brings strong experience in market research, cross-functional collaboration, and solving complex problems. Alexa is especially excited about driving innovation in health-tech and supporting early-stage ventures.

Bijan
Venture Partner

Bijan is the founder of ProductShots.ai who specializes in scaling engineering teams and leading product development in the tech industry.

Chris Carder
Venture Partner

Chris is the Executive Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Schulich School of Business. He is a renowned startup advisor, investor, and award-winning instructor in entrepreneurial studies.

Rami Alhamad
Venture Partner

Rami is a founder and startup advisor currently leading a stealth-mode venture. He is experienced in building innovative platforms leveraging AI for practical solutions, hardware, and health. Rami’s previous startup was a wearable technology that WHOOP acquired.

Trevor Orsztynowicz
Venture Partner

Trevor is a founder and CTO with experience building & leading teams from Seed to Series C. Trevor has expertise in cloud computing.Experienced in product & technology strategy, MVP testing, and setting up any hiring strategies.

Amit Bhalla
Venture Partner

Amit is the CCO at Red Pepper Digital who has expertise in developing & executing go-to-market strategies for customer success and is a Revenue leader with insights into business development.

Browse our latest insights

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Next Residency

October 7, 2025

Apply now