The global early-stage VC firm Antler has recently announced to have closed its first fund of €20 million in the Benelux in an oversubscribed fund. Recently, the VC firm has been in news for backing funding rounds of Maya Climate, Tapline, and Locad.
The investment came from a mix of entrepreneurs, tech operators, and family offices, many of which also bring relevant expertise and networks to support Antler’s portfolio companies in their growth. They include former executives from local tech successes like Adyen, Mollie, and Bunq, and tech giants like Facebook and Google.
Focuses on diverse startups
The VC firm intends to invest in 50 new tech startups over the next three years with this fund. Antler provides founders a platform to build their co-founding teams, get better access to venture capital funding, and scale their businesses faster. It is relevant at a time when large tech companies are announcing massive rounds, which free up highly skilled talent many of whom want to build their own companies and create an impact in the world.
In addition to supporting early-stage founders, Antler supports the startup of scalable technology businesses in a variety of sectors, including fintech/payments, healthtech, climate tech, and edtech.
To date, Antler’s Benelux Fund has invested in companies founded by ex-employees from well-known tech players like Uber, MessageBird, EVBox, and Felyx. 28% of the invested companies had at least one woman founder and 59% had non-Benelux owners.
“Antler’s day-zero platform allows for founders from any background – from experienced entrepreneurs to employees at tech companies to people making the transition from a corporate or academic career – to build strong co-founding teams and accelerate the growth of their new company,” explained Youri Doeleman, Partner at Antler.
“Combining Antler’s approach with the extensive startup experience and knowledge gained over the last decade, we believe we can help produce the next 50 unicorns in the Benelux in the next five years as mentioned in the Benelux Unicorn Founder Roadmap report,” explained Ronald Jan Schuurs, Partner at Antler.
The former CEO of Mollie and an investor in the fund, Gaston Aussems, commented: “I’m always looking for new ways to support founders building pioneering startups, and Antler offers a great platform to do that right from the start. For me, it has always been important to strengthen the local startup ecosystem and share my experience in leading a startup all the way to unicorn status.”
An international approach
As a startup accelerator, Antler already works withl founders on six continents to launch and scale startups. It has offices in 25 cities across six continents, including Austin, New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Bangalore, Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, and Sydney.
Founded in Singapore in 2018, Antler has helped create and invested in more than 600 startups across a wide range of industries and technologies, with the goal of backing more than 6,000 by 2030.
