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.
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
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.
Jeff is a sales leader and investor. Over a nine year run at LinkedIn, Jeff held a series of roles launching new business units and leading sales teams to best-in-company performances as the business grew to 770 million members and $10B in revenue. Separately, Jeff launched his own company, Earhoox, scaling it across the globe. He is also an active angel investor focused on health, wealth, and happiness. Before coming to Antler, he was a General Partner at Forum Ventures, focused on early stage B2B SaaS.
Tyler Norwood is Managing Partner for Antler in the United States, where he oversees the firm’s US growth and geographic expansion. Tyler joined Antler in 2017 as its fifth full-time employee and has been instrumental in launching and scaling the firm. Prior to joining Antler, Tyler was the Global Head of Business Development for Global Fashion Group (GFG), where he was in charge of launching a marketplace business model for GFG’s companies across 21 different countries; he also assisted with the company’s IPO in Frankfurt in 2017. Before GFG, Tyler was the Interim Head of Marketplace at Jabong, which he helped sell for $70 million in 2016, and Head of Marketplace Vietnam at Zalora, the largest fashion e-commerce company in Asia. Along the way, Tyler has also completed the Vietnam Marathon, Singapore Marathon, and Boulder Iron Man. Tyler is passionate about providing a better on ramp to Venture Capital for founders who want to change the world and hands on support for founders in the first 6 months of launching a new startup.
Ryan Sommerville is a General Partner at Antler US. As the first hire for Antler's US expansion four years ago, he played a pivotal role in establishing the firm's presence in New York and Austin. As Head of Portfolio, Ryan spearheaded Antler US’s portfolio management, driving the success of the firm's investments and supporting the growth of portfolio companies. Prior to Antler, Ryan built and scaled ventures in the financial services, apparel, and technology sectors and served as the Director of Financial Programs at Start Small, Think Big.
Prerna Sharma is a General Partner at Antler US and head of the firm’s Austin office. Prerna joined Antler in 2018 in Singapore and was among the first 5 employees of the firm. Before moving to Austin, Prerna was instrumental in expanding Antler’s presence globally along with creating our core methodology on founder origination. Before Antler, Prerna was employee #3 at Uber Asia, where she helped scale Uber across all cities in Asia. After Uber, Prerna successfully laid the entire People & Culture framework at Flow Traders Asia, a leading Dutch proprietary trading firm, specializing in ETFs. Prerna graduated as a Computer Engineer and spent her early career in India building highly scalable products for massive companies like AMEX and GE Healthcare.
Lisa joins Antler with over 16 years of experience in Venture Capital. Before Antler, Lisa was the CFO of Tribe Capital. Prior to Tribe, Lisa served as VP of Finance for Khosla Ventures and as the part-time CFO for several smaller firms including Asset Management Ventures & Prospect Ventures. She started her career at Morgenthaler, based in Cleveland, Ohio.
Charlie Hayley Bell leads Capital and Investor Relations for Antler US. Charlie has 20 years of alternative investment experience in the US, and Latin America across both public and private markets advising investors and raising capital for hedge funds, real estate, PE, and venture capital. Charlie is an investor in early and growth stage technology and CPG companies. He previously was with HSBC, Archstone Partners, and Old City Securities. He holds a MA from Edinburgh University.
Roslyn is a strategy and business development specialist with a background in hypergrowth sales, financial markets, and international policy. Prior to Antler, she helped launch the enterprise segment at WeWork and partnered with financial services accounts to develop custom innovation solutions. Previously, she held positions in structured derivatives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and U.S.-China trade policy at the Executive Office of the President. Roslyn holds a BA from Cornell University and an MBA with an emphasis in strategy and product management from NYU Stern.
Caroline works with founders in Antler's Austin office and leads Antler's US marketing and growth functions. Prior to joining Antler, Caroline worked at NationSwell as an associate producer and in finance at Visa. Caroline graduated Cum Laude from the University of San Diego, where she obtained her BBA in Finance and Business Economics.
Rio is a Senior Principal at Antler US. Prior to Antler, Rio was focused on growth strategy and innovation at frog where he was a Senior Strategist, shaping ideas into commercially viable products and services. Previously, Rio had experience in both growth equity and early-stage VC.
Cody is a Principal on the investing team at Antler. He studied Computer Science at Stanford University before joining Goldman Sachs as a quantitative trader. He has since run product at an early stage FinTech startup, taught >1000 students how to code through his organization Code Sleep Repeat, and most was recently at General Catalyst as the Head of Data Science. He enjoys surfing in California and complaining about the weather in New York.
Cash is a principal on the investment team at Antler. Previously, he was a tech-focused investor at Sweater, the first early stage VC fund available to the public. Cash draws on both a technical and investment background, with time spent at Lucid Software (data engineer) and an early stage impact fund (impact investment associate). Cash holds a BS in Information Systems from Brigham Young University.
Kelly is a Principal on the investing team at Antler. Prior to Antler, she worked across the startup ecosystem at the intersection of technology, climate, and capital. She was a product manager at an edtech nonprofit, a system design engineer and operations manager at agtech startups Plenty and Sensei Ag, Chief of Staff at an energy and climate business, and an intern at three venture capital firms while completing her MBA. In her free time, she can be found exploring a new city, listening to Planet Money or My Climate Journey, climbing, surfing, or searching for a new local coffee spot. Kelly holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Jake is a professional matchmaker and entrepreneurship enthusiast. After graduating from UT Austin, Jake joined Capital Factory's Investor Relations team, eventually growing to the role of Director of Platform managing the fund’s value add services for portfolio founders. After Capital Factory, he joined Foundation Capital, a 30 year old bay area Pre-Seed fund where he built out their Portfolio support function and managed the firm's relationships with F500 VP and CLevel executives. At Antler, Jake identifies high potential future founders and runs them through Antler's investment process. Outside of work, Jake is an avid fan of the NBA and enjoys grilling, walking his two dogs Rainey and Tedder, and trying new cuisines.
Sam is a management professional with over 7 years progressive experience in customer experience, operations, team building and project management for the hospitality industry. She joins us from WeWork where she was a Community Lead. Prior to WeWork, Sam worked for the Four Seasons Hotels as a Guest Experience & Operations Manager.
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.