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Antler

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Researched and published by the startup.ph editorial team from public sources — not a self-submitted profile.

Antler

VC Fund 📍 Singapore, Asia

About Antler

Antler is a global early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2017 by Magnus Grimeland (a former McKinsey consultant and Zalora Group co-founder) and Fridtjof Berge. Headquartered in Singapore, Antler now operates in more than 30 cities across Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Africa, including Sydney, Jakarta, Tokyo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, London, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Dubai, Riyadh, Nairobi, and Lagos.

Antler's core model is its "Residency" program, which combines incubation and acceleration: it brings in individual founders (sometimes without a co-founder or idea yet), helps them form teams and validate concepts over several months, and then invests in the strongest resulting companies. The firm manages roughly $1 billion in assets under management as of 2024 and has backed over 1,500 companies globally, including unicorns Airalo and Lovable. It has since expanded beyond pure seed investing, raising a $285 million fund in 2023 to also support portfolio companies through later rounds up to Series C. As of this research, Antler does not list Manila or the Philippines among its active operating locations, though it is active elsewhere in Southeast Asia (Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City).

Investment Thesis

Antler backs exceptional individual founders before they necessarily have a co-founder, team, or fully-formed idea, using its multi-month Residency program to help them form the right team and validate a real business before investing. It has since broadened into a multi-stage global platform, following on with capital through later rounds for its strongest portfolio companies. The firm is sector-agnostic and geographically broad, prioritizing founder quality over any single market or vertical.

Portfolio Companies

Airalo, Lovable