Antler, an international early-stage venture capital firm with headquarters in Singapore, revealed on Thursday that it has closed its first fund in the Benelux at €20 million. The fund, according to Antler, was oversubscribed.
The money for the fund was raised from a variety of businesspeople, tech companies, and family offices, as well as former executives from Adyen, Mollie, and Bunq and major international internet companies like Facebook and Google.
Over the following three years, Antler says it will invest the money in 50 new software firms.
Antler began investing in the area in 2019 and has since made 46 investments, including 19 in the previous year.
VC firms like SpeedInvest, Connect Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Peak, Volta Ventures, Force over Mass, Mustard Seed Maze, and others have provided follow-on capital for these portfolio companies.
Sprinque, Clear, GenieCloud, SOUS, Cooper Pet Care, Trabotyx, LemonPay, Sonomo, Insiber, Carble, Hero Labs, and JetLearn are notable portfolio firms from the Antler Benelux Fund.
“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,” says Ronald Jan Schuurs, Partner at Antler, “combining Antler’s approach with the extensive startup experience and knowledge gained over the last decade.”
According to Jan Schuurs, “Antler provides the ideal atmosphere to mix their thoughts with a group of varied, extremely skilled, and seasoned founders and further strengthen the local ecosystems.”
Antler, a seed investment company founded in 2017 by Magnus Grimeland and a group of business owners, financiers, and company builders, provides counseling and the chance for founders to connect with co-founders during a residency program. It is capable of making Series C investments.
The venture capital firm offers creators a platform to create their co-founding teams, improve their access to venture capital investment, and quickly expand their firms.
Antler claims it is fostering the development of numerous scalable digital enterprises across sectors like fintech/payments, HealthTech, ClimateTech, and EdTech with its day-zero approach to supporting early-stage innovators.
Antler has backed over 600 businesses in a variety of sectors and technologies and has plans to support another 6,000 by 2030.
The founding teams of many of the investment companies are diverse (28% of teams with at least one woman founder and 59% of founders with a non-Benelux nationality).
The company has offices in the majority of the world’s main business cities, including London, Berlin, Stockholm, New York, Singapore, and Sydney.
Antler’s Benelux Fund has thus far made investments in businesses started by former staff members of well-known internet companies like Uber, MessageBird, EVBox, and Felyx.
“Antler’s day-zero platform enables founders from any background to develop great co-founding teams and accelerate the growth of their new firm, including seasoned business owners, employees at tech companies, and people making the transfer from a corporate or academic career. According to Youri Doeleman, a partner at Antler, “With Antler’s global reach and network, we stand out in the early-stage ecosystem and have already shown to be a beneficial launching pad for businesses across industries.
“Diversity is not just a nice-to-have for us. No matter the founder’s gender, country, or if they are part of a team or not, we offer them a road to finance and scaling, according to Doeleman.
Image Credit: Antler
