MAKING PROGRESS
INEVITABLE
Antler is the investor backing the world’s most driven founders, from day zero to greatness.
MAKING PROGRESS
Founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future, Antler partners with exceptional founders across six continents to launch and scale startups that address meaningful opportunities and challenges.
Knowing that exceptional founders can come from anywhere with any background, we have offices in 27 cities across six continents, including Austin, New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Bangalore, Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, and Sydney.
Our global community of builders, investors, operators, experts, and partner organizations backs people from the very start of their founder journey—pre-team or even pre-idea. Since 2018, we have helped create and invested in more than 1,000+ startups across a wide range of industries and technologies, with the goal of backing more than 6,000 by 2030.
A better future will not happen automatically—the world needs determined, ambitious, and resilient founders to build it. We are committed to supporting them and pursuing our vision of making progress inevitable.
THE PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE US
Put founders first
We prioritize finding and supporting exceptional founders
Build talent density
We create an unrivalled environment for exceptional people
Take 100% ownership
We take total responsibility and accountability for what we do
Be uncomfortably ambitious
We keep raising the bar of what is possible
Live off the land
We are creative and optimize the way we spend our time and resources
One Antler
We are one team, bringing the combined power of our global presence to everything we do
Our leadership
The Antler leadership team consists of serial entrepreneurs, experienced operators and seasoned investors.
Aaron is widely recognized for developing innovative funding mechanisms and advocating for mental health. For SVB, he designed tailored solutions aimed at facilitating institutional investors' access to the global innovation economy. As returns evolved, he recognized shifts in risk, which served as the foundation for bespoke solutions that ultimately enabled SVB to access the best performance in the market.
Bjarne is responsible for Antler's corporate strategy and governance, fund structuring and operations, as well as overseeing legal, risk, and compliance globally. He spent about a decade as a finance professional in global investment banking, and served as the COO for the SEB Solutions team in Stockholm before joining Antler. Bjarne holds a Masters in Finance from Princeton University.
Peter Harrison is the Group Chief Executive at Schroders, the British multinational asset management company founded in 1804, with 574.4bn GBP in assets under management (2020). Harrison began his career at Schroders and subsequently held roles at Newton Investment Management, JP Morgan Asset Management as Head of Global Equities and Multi-Asset and at Deutsche Asset Management as Global Chief Investment Officer. He was Chairman and Chief Executive of RWC Partners before re-joining Schroders as Global Head of Equities in March 2013.
KC is a serial entrepreneur and seasoned VC investor. He is the co-founder and former General Partner of Northzone Ventures—among their seed investments during his tenure are Spotify, Stepstone, and Mas Movii, in addition to 50+ other tech and software companies. Northzone has become one of the leading European VCs backing many of the most successful startups in the region. KC is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hugin AS, and he has co-founded and chaired startup incubators StartupLab, Aleap, ShareLab, and the seed fund Founders Fund. As Antler's Chief Investment Officer, KC oversees investment processes and activities in Antler supporting our investments across all our funds.
Ken Hitchner is the former CEO of APAC ex-Japan, Goldman Sachs. Hitchner joined Goldman Sachs in 1991 after a career as a US Navy pilot. Among the many achievements during his 28 years at one of the world’s premier financial institutions was helping set up and lead its global healthcare banking practice and leading APAC ex-Japan. Ken earned an BA from the University of Colorado and an MBA as a merit fellow from Columbia University Business School.
Aaron Harris is the founder of Magid & Co., where he works with founders to scale their startups and navigate fundraising. He was previously a partner at Y Combinator for 7.5 years, where he funded and advised hundreds of companies including Deel, OpenSea, Scale ($7.3 billion, Rappi, and Groww, Ironclad, Lattice, Ajaib, Xendit and others). He also built YC’s Series A program, which helped hundreds of companies raise over $3 billion in Series A and B rounds. Aaron founded Tutorspree, worked at Bridgewater Associates and went to Harvard University.
Annabel leads our Global Marketing Operations, delivering data-driven insights across our marketing platforms and campaigns. Prior to Antler, Annabel has led growth and digital marketing for global media agencies (OMG, Dentsu), publishers (Future, Bauer) and SaaS platforms (GetPrice, Camplify, Shopify) from start-up to IPO.
Assieh has over 10 years’ experience with high growth technology start-ups and tier-one companies. Prior to joining Antler, Assieh spent 6 years at Blippar, a tech company specialized in Augmented Reality, where she built and lead the Marketing function. Prior to Blippar, Assieh worked with other high growth startups like HelloFresh as well as larger corporates such as Sony.
Retired CEO of T. Rowe Price GIS - T. Rowe Price, the global asset management firm with over $1 trillion under management. Ruppert is also a Venture Partner at Greenspring Associates and an active early-stage investor and Board member of INSEAD Business School and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, among others.
David leads executive talent acquisition at Antler. He focuses on hiring the next generation of Antler Partners by way of international expansion into new geographies, and functional leaders to strengthen firm functions. Prior to Antler, he led global talent acquisition for GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund and institutional investor. He previously looked after Partner executive and leadership recruitment at McKinsey & Company's New Ventures practice. David is an alumnus of Duke University.
James Anderson is the co-manager of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust at Baillie Gifford. Anderson joined Baillie Gifford, which oversees about $450 billion, in 1983 and became a partner four years later. He led the firm’s European equity team and later co-founded its long-term global growth strategy. Anderson also chaired Baillie Gifford’s international growth portfolio construction group from its inception in 2003 until 2019, and pioneered the firm’s investments in non-public companies.
Dragana is Antler's Global Finance Director. Dragana is based in Singapore and oversees all finance related matters for the group. She has over 15 years of experience in managing end to end financial processes and planning, in various jurisdictions, predominantly in the financial services industry. Dragana's passion is streamlining of complex processes and structuring and guiding finance teams in becoming key strategic business partners.
Rike founded and scaled a Communications agency, leading brand launches, public relations, and crisis management. She secured the so-called "New Nordic" designers as clients and organized over 60 shows annually in Paris, New York, and Berlin. Expanding the agency to five offices across Europe and the US, the company represented clients such as H&M, Zalando, Scotch & Soda, 24Sèvres, and Mercedes-Benz. Rike sold the agency in 2019.
Adrian ensures that we are compliant with all regulations in the many regions that Antler operates. Adrian has over 10 years experience in financial compliance including positions with regulators, market makers, broker/dealers and private equity and holds several degrees in business, law, and technology.
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.
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.
Press enquiries
Antler team members are available for speaking engagements or interviews with the media on technology innovation, our approach to venture capital, and other related topics. To find an expert and for all other media inquiries, please contact:
FAQs
What does day zero investing mean?
Day zero investing means backing founders from the very beginning—whether it’s pre-team or even pre-idea—and continuing to support them on their company’s journey to greatness. We are there when a founder is at the starting line, when everything is possible and nothing is certain. When they have made the life-changing decision to take the leap and build a company, leaving conventional career paths behind. When their belief, passion, and drive are often the only things fueling them. And we are still there after we make our first investment, as a long-term partner providing advice, introductions, resources, and follow-on funding—all the way to their exit.
Who is part of Antler’s global community?
Our global community includes founders, investors, operators, experts, and partner organizations across six continents. Antler founders scale faster—from winning their first 100 customers and marketing a new product to raising their next round of funding—with the backing of 8,000+ fellow Antler founders across six continents. They learn from the best in the business through our advisor network of 600 leading operators, our sector-focused communities, and our monthly socials across our locations. And they are powered by curated people and resources for hiring, going to market, and fundraising, along with perks from leading tech providers. Antler founders have a home with us for life—no matter what direction their business or career takes, we’re committed to winning together.
Is Antler an accelerator or incubator?
We are not an accelerator or incubator, we’re the day zero investor. While we take huge pride in helping our founders develop, validate, and start scaling their idea and business model in a short period of time through our residencies around the world, we don’t launch and leave. We keep supporting our founders for the full life cycle of their company—from day zero to greatness.
What is Antler’s investment philosophy?
Above all, we invest in people. We believe that every great company starts with a great team—and the strongest teams pursue the best ideas. Working with thousands of founders around the world, we have found that an amazing team with a mediocre idea in most cases will outperform a mediocre team with a great idea. And great teams will often pivot their idea after finding a more pressing or interesting problem to solve. If we decide to invest, it is first and foremost because we have high conviction that the team we are backing will be future winners and because we can and want to work with the team. Read our full investment philosophy.
