Since 2020, twelve European companies have reached unicorn status, highlighting the strength of the region’s startup ecosystem. During this time, Antler, Europe’s leading early-stage venture capital firm, has invested in over 180 startups across Germany, the Netherlands, France, and beyond, accelerating the growth of notable companies like Lovable, Peec AI, NeoCarbon, and Klearly. Their backers now include prominent firms such as a16z, Coatue, and Accel.
With its new flagship Antler ONE program, Antler is increasing investment in standout founders across Continental Europe, offering initial funding of €500,000 and potential follow-on capital of up to €30 million as startups expand. This ambitious move reflects a fresh approach to building Europe’s best tech companies: faster, more ambitious, with top-tier capital and networks from day one.
Tech Funding News spoke with Christoph Klink, Partner at Antler, to learn how Europe’s next unicorns are being created. Here’s what he shared with us!
How does Antler decide who gets backing?
Antler’s selection process is famously stringent, with only the top 2% of aspiring founders across Europe being selected to participate in a residency. Teams must pitch to Antler’s Investment Committee to secure an investment, a process that historically results in only around 0.2% of all founders who apply to Antler being invested in.
Applications are now open for Antler’s new CE:ONE residency, launching September 2025 with a first phase in Berlin. After this phase, selected founders continue building from Berlin or join Antler’s offices in Munich, Amsterdam, and Paris. “With Antler ONE, the bar will be even higher at every step of this journey,” notes Klink about the intentionally selective program.
The diligence doesn’t end once a founder secures the initial €200,000 investment. “We then provide extensive support to startups once they become our portfolio companies to give them the best possible chance for success. In many ways, this is when the real work begins and we connect founders to our global network of investors, advisors and perks.”
For true outliers who scale rapidly, more capital is available. “We will continue backing the best companies in our portfolio as they scale. This is either done at a local level, or our global later-stage fund, Antler Elevate, will provide significant funding as the companies grow. In the following rounds, we always aim to team up with the strongest group of co-investors (who typically will lead the round) to get the best possible support setup rallied behind the companies,” Klink explains.
What qualities matter? “What we look for is serious commercial traction and evidence that the company is building user numbers and generating real revenue… and we continue to look closely at the founding team: do they have the ambition and ‘outlier’ mindset to really go the distance. In addition, we monitor for possible changes in the market environment, be it customers’ appetite for the company’s product or the competitive environment around the individual company.”
Filling the gaps in Europe’s startup ecosystem
While Europe’s startup scene has matured significantly, major obstacles remain for founders with world-class ambitions, particularly access to large, fast, and “patient” early capital, and to founder-dense communities where experience is shared. Antler’s approach is designed to eliminate these frictions.
“Our portfolio company founders consistently tell us that spending time with like-minded founders and sharing experiences and ideas within a highly connected community where everyone shares the same commitment levels is invaluable to starting and building a great company. Antler ONE is designed further to increase the density of outstanding founders in Europe,” Klink says. “We are doing that by being more selective than ever in terms of only working with the very best founders, and by bringing those great founders from across Europe together in Berlin.”
Antler works with some founders even before a company is incorporated, helping them to assemble complementary teams: “We work with founders, often even before they have incorporated their next company and invest at the inception of their company. We also help them complete their co-founding teams with the best complementary co-founders. At the same time, we are a long-term capital partner with the ability and willingness to keep investing in their company from inception to Series C,” says Klink.
As international ambition becomes the new norm, Antler’s global structure is increasingly valuable: “Any fast-growing technology company will expand beyond its home markets at a point. Drawing on our global network of offices around the world and institutionalised offerings like Antler Expand, where we bring founders around their Series A to Silicon Valley, allows us to offer tailored support to founders as they scale further.”
The funding terms themselves are designed for speed and founder protection: companies securing investment from Antler ONE receive €200k immediately (€100k for 8.5% equity, €100k on an uncapped SAFE/CLA with MFN clause). Up to €300,000 in matching funds is pre-committed, and the full €200,000 is wired following a positive decision.
Founders also receive one-on-one mentoring from partners and global experts, as well as tools and services valued at up to $4 million, and access to Antler’s network of talent and flagship investor events in San Francisco and London.
Shaping a new breed of European outliers
Unlike traditional accelerators or rigid, cohort-based approaches, the Antler ONE experience is individualised, adapting support to each founding team’s journey, whether they’re building in Berlin, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam, or across borders as distributed teams.
This breadth and operational focus allow founders to execute at speeds rarely seen in Europe before. The best now raise pre-seed funding in weeks instead of months and transition from seed to serious revenue in record time, thanks to an ecosystem of mentors, advisors, and repeat founders.
Perhaps most striking, Antler is actively fostering a new class of European “outlier” founders. Technical entrepreneurs now outnumber generalists, a trend driven by the extraordinary growth in AI and software innovation on the continent.
“Founders are building category-defining businesses in a wide range of industries. What has changed is the speed of execution and the experience of founders. AI means that even generalist founders who cannot code themselves can turn great ideas into prototypes at pace and that engineers are speeding up product development considerably at lower spend,” Klink observes.
The numbers back it up: in Germany alone, the number of AI-native builders has grown tenfold in just two years, with more founders coming from unicorns and hyper-growth companies. “We’re seeing outlier founders getting customers, growing revenue and securing early-stage funding faster than ever before,” adds Klink. “And the European flywheel is spinning faster and faster… There has been a 10x increase over the last two years of founders with AI skills in Germany alone. And we’re seeing more and more founders coming from unicorns and fast-growth environments to build their own companies.”
It’s not just AI or tech. Antler’s most successful companies span multiple verticals, from climate and fintech to health and education, increasingly featuring deep technical expertise and the ambition to scale rapidly.
What’s next for Antler ONE? Europe’s generational shift
What’s unfolding is a generational shift: for the first time, Europe’s top talent is less likely to leave for the US or Asia and more likely to return home from global tech companies to build here. As new external capital flows in and breakout companies scale at unprecedented speeds, Antler’s €30 million commitment is setting the pace for a continent-wide tech flywheel.
With applications now open for the new Antler ONE residency, the continent’s boldest founders have an opportunity not just to dream about unicorn status but to access the capital, network, and operational resources to build world-defining companies without ever leaving home. Europe’s generational moment is here, and Antler is determined to back the outliers leading the way.
