WE INVEST IN INDIA’S MOST EXTRAORDINARY INDIVIDUALS FROM DAY ZERO TO GREATNESS

We invest in people. People with the ambition to build large companies.

Through our Residencies globally, we work with and invest in the most exceptionally talented individuals and early teams. Antler is one of the largest pre-seed investors in India. We are here to maximize success for the entire life cycle of your startup - from backing you at the idea stage and helping you build faster, to being a long-term partner as your company grows.

Join Antler to validate your idea, build your team, and access capital to launch and scale your company. 

Antler commits up to $500K in idea-stage startups. Read here to learn more. If you have any questions about the upcoming Residency or wondering if it is a fit for you, join us for an AMA hosted by the Antler team. Sign up here.

Applications are open for early teams throughout the year for rolling intake and for the cohort starting August 2024 for individuals. The last date to apply is 31st July 2024.

* For the September residency, French founders will need to relocate to Amsterdam, Berlin, or Munich.

Join an upcoming AMA session

  • Funding for your startup in just 5 weeks
  • Get your first cheque from a global VC

WE BACK TOP TALENT TO BUILD GREAT COMPANIES

One of the most active early-stage investors in the world, we have backed 1000+ companies globally. The founders we work with are remarkable—out of more than 40,000 who have applied to us over the last three years in India, less than 1% are accepted to join our residencies. Of these, Antler has invested in 62 startups in SaaS, FinTech, and ConsumerTech, along with investments in disruptive new themes like AI, ONDC, Climate, Web3 infrastructure, and SpaceTech; with a high selectivity of <0.2%.

We partner with experienced business operators, serial entrepreneurs, technologists, or domain experts who have the ambition to build game-changing businesses. The founders in our Residency are fiercely ambitious, possess an intense bias towards execution, and are innately driven to change the world. You can come to us with just an idea, with or without a co-founder - if you're truly ready to sprint forward and build, we'll work with you from day zero.

Individuals

With the ambition to found a company

Pre or post idea and pre-product.

Exceptional individuals join Antler before the inception of their company to find a co-founder(s), co-create and build alongside other ambitious individuals, and raise their first institutional capital. We further support you at this stage with access to hands-on sessions by domain experts and office hours. Once ready, within 8-12 weeks, you may pitch to the Investment Committee to raise up to $500K via Antler's standard deal, ARC.

Teams

Looking to validate their idea & raise capital

Early teams with an idea or an MVP are also welcome to join Antler Residency. Teams are generally at the stage of validating their idea, building the early product, or gearing up for launch. Teams looking for a third co-founder are also welcome to apply. We help teams with idea validation and assessing venture scalability through hands-on office hours. The intake for teams is rolling and all teams get a decision within 4 weeks of being accepted into the Residency to raise up to $500K via Antler's standard deal, ARC.

Before Day Zero

Community

Before Day Zero is an invite-only exclusive community designed to help India’s top talent figure out their next big move. If you are 3-6 months out from starting your company, this community is ideal for you. Be it building a billion-dollar company or exploring a contrarian way of solving something archaic. Enjoy the company of like-minded individuals, engage in meaningful social and professional conversations, and build a network that will fuel your entrepreneurial dreams.

Join the waitlist

A CLEAR ADVANTAGE FROM DAY ZERO

The Antler platform is the best place to launch your startup. From day zero, we surround you with everything you need to build at lightning speed. We help you stress-test the venture scalability of your idea, find co-founder(s), and access local and global networks of founders and advisors to help you build rapidly. Upon investment, you get access to our Portfolio Platform and coaching with the Antler team with a focus on rapid growth and rigorous fundraising preparation.

Having invested in 1,000+ companies and supported 8000+ entrepreneurs through our programs in 27 locations globally, we know what works and what doesn't. This helps us better support our founders to help maximize their chances of success. The Residency for individuals is in-person in Bangalore and runs twice a year for 8-12 weeks. The Residency for teams is rolling and can be virtual or in-person depending on the team’s preference, with 1-2 office hours per week for 4 weeks.

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Join a community of exceptional founders and kickstart your journey

  • For Individuals: Meet 80+ exceptional potential co-founders - tech, business, and domain experts selected from over 7,000 applicants. Join a supportive and like-minded community that is committed to building venture-scale companies. Post successful team formation and idea selection, individuals move to the Teams track, usually in 8-12 weeks.
  • For Teams: Weekly office hours with dedicated Antler team members and Partners to stress-test the venture scalability and idea validation; and a decision within 4 weeks.
  • Receive INR 1L for individuals and early teams as a one-time grant to cover expenses, free office space, and $1M+ worth of founder perks.

Validate and launch your idea

  • Work in a high-intensity environment to achieve the fastest progress towards idea clarity and launch.
  • Leverage our best-in-class resources for ideation and Antler-designed effective frameworks for idea validation.
  • Access company-building knowledge from seasoned operators, unicorn founders, and the Antler team.
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Get capital commitment up to $500K

  • After building with us in Residency, you may have the opportunity to pitch for your first investment. We do not take any program fees from the founders. For existing teams, get a decision for a potential Investment Committee meeting within 4 weeks.
  • If you receive funding, we will write you the first check for $250,000 for 9% of your new company. If you don't receive funding, we will sit down and tell you exactly why—100% transparency. Read FAQ for more details.
  • Additionally, we will commit 50 cents for every dollar raised from external accredited investors in the next round within 9 months, up to $250K, at the latest valuation. This means if you raise $500K in your next round, Antler will put in an additional $250K at a new valuation, taking your total capital raised to $1M early on in your journey. 

Read more about ARC, the new standard deal for all startups invested in, via the Antler Residency in India.

Build and scale your company

  • Post-investment, you get to be a part of 'Antler Forward', our portfolio support platform that's individually tailored for each startup's needs. In this phase you accelerate towards your early PMF in 3 to 4 months, build your team and work on go-to-market, with hands on coaching from the Antler team and our network of advisors.
  • When founders are ready to raise their next round of funding, they are eligible to opt into Spotlight, Antler's Investor Showcase. We also make relevant introductions based on stage, sector and business models to top-tier investors that we work closely with to help you raise your seed round.
  • Antler association does not end here. Through our $285M global continuity fund, we continue to back founders through the life cycle of their companies.

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As investors, we have backed over 100 companies across various stages, sectors, and geographies. We have seen multiple companies go to IPO, delivered sizeable M&A outcomes, and worked closely with nearly 70 startups in helping them raise further rounds of funding from some of the world’s marquee funds. Here are some companies we have been first believers in:

HEAR FROM FOUNDERS WHO JOINED ANTLER IN INDIA TO LAUNCH THEIR COMPANY

Ayush Agrawal

Co-founder, Kubo Care; Prev - Founder, Seniority.in and AVP at Cars24

Joining Antler’s Residency was a pivotal moment in my start-up journey. Not only did I meet my co-founder Anurag there, the vibrant ecosystem and Antler's hands-on approach also provided the fertile ground from which our venture, Kubo Care, blossomed. Antler's mentorship and network have been invaluable, and I'm grateful for the incredible support and the lasting impact they have had on our journey.

Dr. Karan Raj Jaggi

Co-founder, Guardians; Ex-Global Product Head at Aktivhealth

Antler India Residency was a truly transformational experience for me. Having worked at multiple startups, I always had a strong desire to eventually start on my own entrepreneurial journey, but coming from a core medical background, I lacked a concrete playbook to put the plans in motion. AIR not only provided me with all the tools & resources that were needed but most importantly also highlighted that it’s okay to not have all the answers!

Vignesh Baskaran

Co-founder, Hexo.ai; Ex-Senior Data Scientist at Clarivate

I was actively looking for a co-founder for more than a year. I tried multiple co-founder matching programs and nothing worked out. Finally, I met my wonderful co-founder Kunal through AIR and it has been a fantastic journey ever since. Very grateful to the folks at Antler. They are not only investors but also have been operators. So they have founders first mindset and that is the best part of Antler!

Neha Juneja

IndiaP2P

The Antler team feels like an extension of one’s own team. I have some experience raising money before, but this is unique to Antler. They don't see you as investors, you are like their own team. Antler team understands how founders think about building as they’ve done it before.

Ronak Massand

Adaptive

Antler is by far my favourite entity on the cap table. The level of support and portfolio management is just incredible. No angel or even hustle fund comes close.

Hitesh Bhuraria

Co-founder, Sangti; Ex-Senior Manager at Bain & Company

Antler Residency Program has been a critical turning point in my entrepreneurial journey. Access to a curated set of high-potential founders, 1-1 brainstorming sessions with the Antler team, and information sessions with industry experts have helped refine our idea and accelerate our go-to-market. 9 months on from the program, I am building a climate tech platform with my co-founder, whom I met at Antler Residency and a team of 8 that has been enabled by the subsequent funding support.

ANTLER FOUNDERS SCALE FASTER

We exist to increase our founders’ speed and success rate in solving important problems. They scale faster—from winning their first 100 customers, and hiring a solid founding team to raising their next round of funding—with the backing of 8,000+ fellow Antler founders across six continents.

  • New-age investment platform, IndiaP2P has disbursed loans to over 18000 women entrepreneurs within 24 months of launch.
  • Intercity bus travel platform for Bharat, Apnibus is the largest bus aggregator in North India with 7,000 buses on the platform and ~300,000 tickets booked annually.
  • ONDC Technology Service Provider (TSP), Plotch.ai, has powered over 10M transactions on ONDC within 12 months of launch.
  • AI copilot for product design, Figr, has reached 20000+ monthly active users, 400K+ searches, and 85K+ design downloads within 6 months of product launch.
  • DEX for perpetuals, LogX, has processed over $15B since December 2023. Every day, LogX processes over $130M in volume with around 150K total users on the platform.
  • Web3 security infrastructure platform, ChainRisk, has closed partnerships with Compound and Arbitrum and is currently working with over 8 top Web3 protocols.
Entrepass Partner

THE PEOPLE BEHIND ANTLER IN INDIA

As builders, we have founded companies in E-commerce, HealthTech, PropTech, FinTech, and Web3, created products used by millions of people, hired early core teams, and raised capital across different stages.

Rajiv Srivatsa
Partner

Rajiv is a Partner in the Antler Bangalore office. He co-founded Urban Ladder (UL), India's top omni-channel furniture brand. Over ~8 years, UL raised over $100Mn in venture capital from top Indian VCs and changed the way Indians shop for furniture online. Prior to Urban Ladder, he served as a Senior Product Manager with Yahoo. He has been featured on GQ Influential Young Indians and repeatedly on the Fortune 40 Under 40 India list. Rajiv loves working with early-stage entrepreneurs on product, culture and brand to build scalable companies.

Nitin Sharma
Partner

Nitin brings 12+ years of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 100+ tech startups across stages, from being the first believer all the way to pre-IPO. Nitin learnt the ropes of the VC business in the US at NEA (one of the world’s largest funds) and was also an early executive at EverFi (acq. by Blackbaud for $750M). Nitin was part of the founding team at Lightbox Ventures, one of India’s leading funds (now $400M AUM). He then created his own micro-VC (FirstPrinciples) as a thesis-driven, early believer in 40+ startups, and was the first VC in India to focus on Web3. A Wharton graduate, Nitin has served on advisory boards/groups for the USC Viterbi School, NITI Aayog, AngelList India and TheBetterIndia.

Lakshmikant PB
Director, Finance & Legal

Lakshmikant is the Head of Finance & Legal at Antler India. Lakshmikant has more than 19 years of experience in PE & VC Fund Management, NBFC Operations, and Banking Operations. Prior to joining Antler, Lakshmikant was a Consultant to T-Hub, a Startup accelerator based in Hyderabad, and helped their startups raise capital from Angels and VC investors. Prior to his role as a Consultant, he was the Finance Controller at SRI Capital, a US-based tech VC Fund where he set up their India operations and represented the fund on the board of portfolio companies. Before that, Lakshmikant spent 10 years at Caspian Impact Investments where he was the Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Caspian, Lakshmikant worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions and Citigroup. Lakshmikant holds an MBA from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

Nandini Vishwanath
Senior Program Director

Nandini is the Program Director at Antler India. She was previously the founder of GIGI Benefits (YC’20). Prior to her founder stint, she architected and led customer experience for Urban Ladder, India’s leading Furniture e-commerce startup. She holds a Masters Degree in Linguistics from English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India and New Media Management from Syracuse University, NY.

Susmit Patodia
Associate Partner, Capital

Susmit Patodia is the Capital Director at Antler India. Susmit started his career with Accenture Management Consulting.

After which he spent the last decade with Motilal Oswal, one of India's premier financial services company. He has held various leadership positions in Motilal from heading institutional equities sales business to portfolio management at the Asset Management Company.

He is a strong believer in India’s meteoric growth over the next decade and his focus is on “Antifragile investing in India”, “Don’t bet against India” and “Return to not normal but better”. Susmit is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and Madras University.

Gowri Shankar
Associate Partner, Portfolio Management

Gowri Shankar leads the portfolio function at Antler. Prior to Antler, Gowri has a decade of deep experience in building and scaling internet businesses in India. He co-founded AllChemist (one of India’s first e-Pharmacy players), RoofandFloor (end-to-end real estate commerce platform) and STEP (English language testing platform) from scratch. He was part of the executive leadership team that scaled InMobi (largest independent Mobile advertising platform) and Medlife/Pharmeasy (e-Health market leader). He also transformed Cleartax’s (India’s largest SaaS platform) Enterprise/ B2B Business and set it up for scale.

Gowri received an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru where he was awarded the Chairman’s Gold Medal.

Ishavasyam Dash
Senior Marketing Director

Ishavasyam Dash is the Marketing Director at Antler India. Previously, Isha was a part of the leadership team at Unacademy, where she helped launch and grow a new skill-based course platform. She also led brand marketing for Urban Ladder, helping it become one of India's most loved brands. Prior, she was at Dulux (AkzoNobel), where she launched the specialist paints category in India. Isha holds a Master's Degree in Marketing from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Karan Prasad
Manager, Program

Karan is the Program Associate for the Antler India cohorts and plays an active role in enabling partnerships for our global portfolio. Prior to joining Antler, he worked across business development and community management across SaaS and cloud verticals. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from BMS College of Engineering.

Neha Reddy
Associate, Marketing

Neha is the Marketing Associate at Antler India. Previously, she was a part of the founding team at leap.club, a community-led professional network for women where she worked on marketing and engagement.

Reetik Agarwal
Manager, Investments

Reetik works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. He focuses on Investments, where he builds thesis & identify trends in the market, performs due diligence on companies and makes investment recommendations.

Sankalp Sharma
Senior Associate, Program

Sankalp works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. He focuses on building our founder network and identifying super passionate founders building for the future. Prior to this, he spent 5 years working with LocoNav in multiple leadership roles across Operations and Strategy. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Ojasvi Srivastava
Associate, Portfolio

Ojasvi is the part of the portfolio team at Antler India. Previously, he was working closely with two early stage startups in product management & fundraising.

Neharika Garg
Associate, Investments

Neharika works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. Prior to this, she was an early member of GOAT Brand Labs (e-commerce rollup/house of brands player) and did stints across M&A and Category where where she analysed and invested in consumer brands and supported the growth of the portfolio. Neharika is an alumnus of The Shri Ram College of Commerce.

Dravisha Katoch
Associate, Community Lead

Dravisha is the Community Lead at Antler India. Her strength lies in the cusp of growth, marketing, and community. She has led growth and marketing for community-led startups such as Basis and leap.club previously. She's also helped founders build successful startups in the 0 to 1 phase across SaaS, EdTech, MediaTech, and DeepTech in the past 5 years.

Divita Aggarwal
Associate, Program

Divita is a Capital Associate at Antler India. Previously, Divita was a founder at 73 Boston, India’s first wine & spirits brand created specifically for the Indian taste palate. She studied Economics at Ashoka University and got her MBA from Masters’ Union. Divita is also a passionate writer and a published author of two books. Her latest non-fiction book was a documentation of the COVID-19 pandemic and was appreciated by literary veterans like Dr Shashi Tharoor.

Vignesh Prasad
Analyst, Finance

Vignesh works as a Finance Analyst at Antler India. Prior to joining Antler, Vignesh worked as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs. He is a qualified ACCA Affiliate, having obtained multiple global ranks in the process. He holds a Bachelor's degree from St. Joseph's College of Commerce, Bangalore specialising in International Accounting and Finance.

Dravisha Katoch
Associate, Community Lead

Dravisha is the Community Lead at Antler India. Her strength lies in the cusp of growth, marketing, and community. She has led growth and marketing for community-led startups such as Basis and leap.club previously. She's also helped founders build successful startups in the 0 to 1 phase across SaaS, EdTech, MediaTech, and DeepTech in the past 5 years.

Divita Aggarwal
Associate, Program

Divita is a Capital Associate at Antler India. Previously, Divita was a founder at 73 Boston, India’s first wine & spirits brand created specifically for the Indian taste palate. She studied Economics at Ashoka University and got her MBA from Masters’ Union. Divita is also a passionate writer and a published author of two books. Her latest non-fiction book was a documentation of the COVID-19 pandemic and was appreciated by literary veterans like Dr Shashi Tharoor.

Vignesh Prasad
Analyst, Finance

Vignesh works as a Finance Analyst at Antler India. Prior to joining Antler, Vignesh worked as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs. He is a qualified ACCA Affiliate, having obtained multiple global ranks in the process. He holds a Bachelor's degree from St. Joseph's College of Commerce, Bangalore specialising in International Accounting and Finance.

Neharika Garg
Associate, Investments

Neharika works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. Prior to this, she was an early member of GOAT Brand Labs (e-commerce rollup/house of brands player) and did stints across M&A and Category where where she analysed and invested in consumer brands and supported the growth of the portfolio. Neharika is an alumnus of The Shri Ram College of Commerce.

Sankalp Sharma
Senior Associate, Program

Sankalp works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. He focuses on building our founder network and identifying super passionate founders building for the future. Prior to this, he spent 5 years working with LocoNav in multiple leadership roles across Operations and Strategy. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Ojasvi Srivastava
Associate, Portfolio

Ojasvi is the part of the portfolio team at Antler India. Previously, he was working closely with two early stage startups in product management & fundraising.

Gowri Shankar
Associate Partner, Portfolio Management

Gowri Shankar leads the portfolio function at Antler. Prior to Antler, Gowri has a decade of deep experience in building and scaling internet businesses in India. He co-founded AllChemist (one of India’s first e-Pharmacy players), RoofandFloor (end-to-end real estate commerce platform) and STEP (English language testing platform) from scratch. He was part of the executive leadership team that scaled InMobi (largest independent Mobile advertising platform) and Medlife/Pharmeasy (e-Health market leader). He also transformed Cleartax’s (India’s largest SaaS platform) Enterprise/ B2B Business and set it up for scale.

Gowri received an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru where he was awarded the Chairman’s Gold Medal.

Apply @ Antler India
Vineet Agarwal
Investment Director

Vineet Agarwal is an Investment Manager at Antler India. He executes investments at Antler India and helps raise capital for Antler India Fund. In his last stint, he was a core member of the Strategy division at Ola and was involved in multiple fundraises ($500m+) and M&A activity across Ola Group. Previously, he was at Goldman Sachs (Investment Banking) where he worked on deals worth $40bn+. Vineet is a 2x founder, and founded Motorhood (a vehicle maintenance startup) & BluGanesha Airwaves (a proximity marketing venture). He holds an MBA from NMIMS Mumbai and a Bachelors in Commerce from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.

Varun Bengani
Investment Analyst

Varun is a part of the Investments team at Antler India, focusing on early-stage consumer internet businesses, D2C brands & Web 3. He holds a Bachelors degree in Commerce from St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata where he pursued Chartered Accountancy and dropped out as a finalist.

Susmit Patodia
Associate Partner, Capital

Susmit Patodia is the Capital Director at Antler India. Susmit started his career with Accenture Management Consulting.

After which he spent the last decade with Motilal Oswal, one of India's premier financial services company. He has held various leadership positions in Motilal from heading institutional equities sales business to portfolio management at the Asset Management Company.

He is a strong believer in India’s meteoric growth over the next decade and his focus is on “Antifragile investing in India”, “Don’t bet against India” and “Return to not normal but better”. Susmit is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and Madras University.

Samiksha Agarwal
Investment Manager

Samiksha works as an Investment Manager with Antler India. She focuses on Founder Scouting, where she helps identify super passionate founders building for the future. Prior to this, she worked as an Analyst at 3one4 Capital and interned with EY in Zurich in the TAS department. She is an alumnus of The Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of St. Gallen, and IE Business School.

Rohan Kohli
Portfolio Management

Rohan works with a portfolio of early-stage SaaS and Consumer startups, supporting them in areas spanning go-to-market strategies, capital fundraising, and strategic partnerships. Prior to joining Antler, Rohan was at xto10x, Binny Bansal's startup scaling platform, where he led initiatives focused on growth and market strategies. He was one of the founding members at Lynk Global, a SaaS expert network startup, in their India office. Subsequently, he extended the company's reach to North America, establishing offices in New York and Toronto.

Rajiv Srivatsa
Partner

Rajiv is a Partner in the Antler Bangalore office. He co-founded Urban Ladder (UL), India's top omni-channel furniture brand. Over ~8 years, UL raised over $100Mn in venture capital from top Indian VCs and changed the way Indians shop for furniture online. Prior to Urban Ladder, he served as a Senior Product Manager with Yahoo. He has been featured on GQ Influential Young Indians and repeatedly on the Fortune 40 Under 40 India list. Rajiv loves working with early-stage entrepreneurs on product, culture and brand to build scalable companies.

Reetik Agarwal
Manager, Investments

Reetik works as an Investment Associate with Antler India. He focuses on Investments, where he builds thesis & identify trends in the market, performs due diligence on companies and makes investment recommendations.

Rahul Seth
Scouting Director

Rahul is the Scouting Director at Antler India. At Antler, he leads the process of identifying the most driven founders looking to build iconic companies. He has been an early stage operator, founder and angel investor in the Indian startup ecosystem, and has backed the founders of Pixxel, FamPay and Homingos. Rahul is an alumnus of BITS Pilani & The Indian Military Academy.

Nitin Sharma
Partner

Nitin brings 12+ years of experience in global venture capital, having invested in 100+ tech startups across stages, from being the first believer all the way to pre-IPO. Nitin learnt the ropes of the VC business in the US at NEA (one of the world’s largest funds) and was also an early executive at EverFi (acq. by Blackbaud for $750M). Nitin was part of the founding team at Lightbox Ventures, one of India’s leading funds (now $400M AUM). He then created his own micro-VC (FirstPrinciples) as a thesis-driven, early believer in 40+ startups, and was the first VC in India to focus on Web3. A Wharton graduate, Nitin has served on advisory boards/groups for the USC Viterbi School, NITI Aayog, AngelList India and TheBetterIndia.

Neha Reddy
Associate, Marketing

Neha is the Marketing Associate at Antler India. Previously, she was a part of the founding team at leap.club, a community-led professional network for women where she worked on marketing and engagement.

Nandini Vishwanath
Senior Program Director

Nandini is the Program Director at Antler India. She was previously the founder of GIGI Benefits (YC’20). Prior to her founder stint, she architected and led customer experience for Urban Ladder, India’s leading Furniture e-commerce startup. She holds a Masters Degree in Linguistics from English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India and New Media Management from Syracuse University, NY.

Lakshmikant PB
Director, Finance & Legal

Lakshmikant is the Head of Finance & Legal at Antler India. Lakshmikant has more than 19 years of experience in PE & VC Fund Management, NBFC Operations, and Banking Operations. Prior to joining Antler, Lakshmikant was a Consultant to T-Hub, a Startup accelerator based in Hyderabad, and helped their startups raise capital from Angels and VC investors. Prior to his role as a Consultant, he was the Finance Controller at SRI Capital, a US-based tech VC Fund where he set up their India operations and represented the fund on the board of portfolio companies. Before that, Lakshmikant spent 10 years at Caspian Impact Investments where he was the Chief Financial Officer. Prior to Caspian, Lakshmikant worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions and Citigroup. Lakshmikant holds an MBA from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

Karan Prasad
Manager, Program

Karan is the Program Associate for the Antler India cohorts and plays an active role in enabling partnerships for our global portfolio. Prior to joining Antler, he worked across business development and community management across SaaS and cloud verticals. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from BMS College of Engineering.

Ishavasyam Dash
Senior Marketing Director

Ishavasyam Dash is the Marketing Director at Antler India. Previously, Isha was a part of the leadership team at Unacademy, where she helped launch and grow a new skill-based course platform. She also led brand marketing for Urban Ladder, helping it become one of India's most loved brands. Prior, she was at Dulux (AkzoNobel), where she launched the specialist paints category in India. Isha holds a Master's Degree in Marketing from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Cathy Guo
Portfolio and Investment Manager

Cathy Guo is a Portfolio and Investment Manager at Antler India. Previously, Cathy was the CEO and Co-Founder of Dunya Labs, building developer tools for decentralized applications. She was also a founding team member at True Beacon, a new-age asset management company formed by the founders of Zerodha, and led early-stage venture investments in companies such as Clinikk and Stayqrious at First Principles, an early-stage seed fund in Bangalore. Cathy has a degree in Economics and Philosophy from Columbia University. She is the co-author of Myth of the Entrepreneur, a book on social entrepreneurship published by Harper Collins India.

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HIGH CONVICTION DRIVEN DAY ZERO INVESTING

Browse our collection of founder stories, industry insights, and the latest startup successes from Antler.

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Investing in Tradomate.one: Building The Intelligence Arsenal For The Future of Trading

Tradomate.one is building an AI-based trading analysis and automation platform for the next-gen trader.

Investing in Kubo Care: Disrupting Age Old Elder Care

Kubo Care aims to empower over 1 billion seniors globally to age safely and independently through innovative and non-invasive health monitoring solutions.

Investing in Cautio: Pioneering Intelligent Mobility, One Vehicle At A Time

Cautio is building the future of safety and security with intelligent video telematics.

Investing in Meine Electric: Creating a solution for limitless renewable energy

Meine Electric is revolutionizing renewable energy generation with aluminium-air fuel cells.

Investing in Supereps.ai: Bringing Offline Retail Into The Age of AI

Supereps.ai is building the next-gen intelligence platform for offline retail.

Investing in Insurance Padosi: Making Insurance Accessible For Millions

Insurance Padosi is building a new-age insurance solution with a focus on customer education and personalized recommendations.

Investing in HireBound: Making HR more human with the help of AI

HireBound is a conversational AI copilot that automates workflows for recruiters and develops proprietary resume intelligence.

Why Antler is the best place to start your company

As a founder, going from 0 to 1 is the most defining phase of your company-building journey. Read on to understand how Antler significantly increases your odds of success.

Introducing The ARC - Agreement for Rolling Capital

A new venture deal construct to catalyze your next raise, with your first raise.

Join India’s 170+ smartest thinkers building the next big thing

Inside Before Day Zero, India’s most exclusive startup community for top talent figuring out their next move.

Meet the fourth cohort of the Antler India Residency

Read more about the founders that make the largest residency cohort to date in India.

Unpacking the $80+ billion ONDC opportunity: India’s next startup catalyst

India's approach to unbundle payments made the world look up and take notice. Now it's time to disrupt commerce with the Open Network for Digital Commerce or ONDC. In our latest Theory of Next deep dive we mapped, researched, and reached out to every network participant live on ONDC right now.


And we're excited to share with you a comprehensive what could be India's next unicorn catalyst with inputs from Vibhor Jain (COO of ONDC), Sujith Nair (Founding member of Beckn Protocol), and founders building on ONDC!

Co-authored by Nitin Sharma (Partner, Antler) and Gokul Kumaravelu.

Investing in IndiaP2P and unlocking capital for 80M women entrepreneurs

IndiaP2P's tech platform ensures the country’s highest-quality borrowers get access to faster, cheaper capital.

Investing in InspeCity and the mission to build cities in space

InspeCity is building propulsion and in-space servicing to enable space cities in the future.

FAQs

Terms of Investment and ARC

The ARC stands for Agreement for Rolling Capital. It is the new standard deal for all startups invested in, via the Antler Residency in India. Through ARC, we commit to investing up to $500K in idea-stage companies, on a rolling basis. The first cheque is a $250K pre-seed investment, the team’s first institutional capital, often purely at a concept stage, without the requirement of a product or traction. Soon after that initial investment, Antler will also commit to investing an additional amount of up to $250K in the next 9 months, matching 50% of the funds raised by the startup from external accredited investors at a new valuation. The goal of ARC is to enable startups to speed from just an idea to $1M+ of capital raise within 9-12 months, and to do so in a founder-friendly construct when it comes to dilution. Read more here.

All our investments are made in INR, with an exchange rate of 1 USD to 80 INR.

NEXT100

A first-of-its-kind report in collaboration with over 100 VCs, unicorn founders, technologists and ecosystem leaders, NEXT100 is a compilation of the most compelling problem statements and startup ideas that we, as an ecosystem, think should be pursued.

Some of the contributors include Nithin Kamath (Zerodha), Sriharsha Majety (Swiggy), Aditya Ghosh (Akasa Air), Sudhakar VS (Big Basket), Mayank Kumar (upGrad), Dr. Pramod Varma (FIDE), GV Ravishankar (Peak XV), Harsh Jain (Dream11), Vani Kola (Kalaari Capital), Sanjay Swamy (Prime Ventures), Pratik Poddar (Nexus VP), Sajith Pai (Blume), Dev Khare (Lightspeed), Barath Shankar (Accel), Mridul Arora (Elevation Capital), and Avinash Raghava (SaaSBOOMi).

Build on ONDC

The first and only venture ecosystem focused on ONDC for founders in India, Antler's Build on ONDC platform brings together capital, content and community to help entrepreneurs create businesses and succeed on the open protocol. Created in collaboration with FIDE (Foundation for Interoperability in Digital Economy) and ONDC.

Explore Build on ONDC

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