TLDR: Antler’s US Spring Residency kicks off tomorrow.
We continue to break records at Antler.
Across all of 2023—in the US alone—we received over 8,400 applications to build companies with us.
In just three months since January 2024, we’ve already received 6,822.
Tomorrow, 192 of those teams, 280 founders in total, will join us for our Spring Residency.
That means just 2.81% of all companies applying to build with us will receive a spot, with an average team size of 1.4.
And for reference on selectivity, Harvard admits 3.59%.
These founders will now get to work together in the rarified air that is rooted in their past successes, shared ambitions, and total obsessions. Over the next two months, they will work alongside one another helping each other navigate day zero, meeting co-founders and first employees, finding first customers, and building venture-backable businesses.
At the end of two months, Antler US will invest $500K in the most impressive builders and leaders of the entire group—typically the top 10-15%.
At a stage this early—roughly 14 months earlier than the average company being admitted to a traditional accelerator—it’s imperative that we develop conviction in the execution of the founding team rather than becoming emotionally invested in the business ideas and markets. We need to suss out resilience and understand what true expectations founders have of themselves and others. To do this, we work in-person, alongside the teams, creating value and helping them build before we invest. This is both great for our founders who get to know us and get to understand how we operate before accepting us onto their cap table, as well as for our LP’s, who get the advantage of our team de-risking their investments by only choosing the most maniacally focused and ambitious people in the world.
The next eight weeks are going to be wild, but in the meantime, you can check out our Fall cohort and our first investments out of US Fund II below.
Antler New York City Fall 2023
With a 3.9% admission rate in 2023, and a 10% investment rate in New York City, our local team invested in just 0.39% of companies we evaluated, and made 8 investments.
Of those 8 investments, 7 have already leveraged the Antler signal into additional capital at valuations 3-5X higher than our investment in January.
Here’s a look at who made the cut in New York City
Doorstep AI helps delivery companies navigate the last 500 ft with a mixed-reality visual guidance system. Imagine a world where deliveries are 40% faster from door to doorstep, 100% error-proof, and where first-responder times are cut down by minutes. Shashwat Murarka, Rishabh Goel, and Sheel Patel have been awarded AI patents, government grants in AI work, served as CTO of hypergrowth SaaS startups, as well as founded and exited a global e-commerce company. And they did most of that while in college. Just imagine what they’ll do now.
Spacture AI is solving the $112B annual loss to retail theft with real-time shoplifting detection using AI, computer vision, and facial recognition. Nazım Eryılmaz and Yunus Emre have combined 20+ years of experience in AI/ML at Google, Meta, and hypergrowth startups raising over $30M. Early customers are already detecting shoplifters since their launch last month, and merchants are seeing potential for profits to soar 50% to 200% by detecting shoplifting using Large Video Models (LVM’s).
Zeph Breath is an AI-enabled platform for clinical therapists to treat patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Imagine being short of breath, not being able to get up the stairs in your own home, and yet needing to drive over an hour to the nearest rehab facility for treatment. Zeph is bringing and end to the unnecessary obstacle that hundreds of millions of patients around the world face as they struggle to benefit from pulmonary rehab. Mimi Gendreau Kigawa and Francis Kigawa are driven by their mom's lifelong battle with COPD, and with Dr. Shikha Anand, MD, MPH, bring decades of experience in engineering, clinical care team development, and product design.
CarbonPilot streamlines the measurement, reporting, and verification of carbon removal credits. Tristan Springer previously started a carbon company where he became acutely familiar with the problem, and John Bogil built software at companies like Reddit and Dubsmash. With their founder market fit, it’s no wonder they continue to receive investment offers from customers alongside signed contracts.
Loula is a novel approach to instant wage access for the global workforce and the underbanked. All you need to know is that Igor and Alex are exited founders with a combined 5 fintechs they’ve previously built, achieving Forbes 30 under 30, and experiences spanning Airwallex, Metal Pay, eBay, and Western Union.
Zooma is an AI-enabled staffing marketplace connecting dental practices & hygienists. Saad Shaikh and Ilya Bryliov met in the Antler Residency and have combined 20+ years of experience in marketplaces, product, and engineering as early employees at Uber, Aave, and Amazon. Just wait until you see their growth numbers.
Pinpoint is the infrastructure layer for business development executives in media/entertainment, enabling creators and promoters to realize their revenues in real time. Joshua Cohen and Justin Krokoff are ex-founders of a music business bringing A-list artists to Gen Z, and previously held roles in sales and product at Google and TripAdvisor, as well as being part of the founding team at Rattle. Not only have they raised in a turbulent market, but they’ve closed marquee clients like Lil Baby and Barstool.
PatientFirst.ai processes immunization records for university healthcare workers. Fiza Shaukat and Farooq Shaukat are ex-founders with experiences at EY and Accenture, launching digital health solutions across the US, Peru, Africa, and Pakistan. This team also won 1st Prize at Boston University New Venture Competition, 1st Prize at Harvard Roche Competition, and 1st Prize at Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge.
And that’s jut the tip of the iceberg. Across Boulder & Austin we made another 20+ investments (below), and in New York, we’re also unveiling companies out of stealth like PerformVu who recently won an award at SXSW in the Entertainment & Media category and is growing at 20% MoM connecting global audiences to video art curated from the world’s top artists & museums. Indy Sanders is an ex-pro tennis player and tech growth specialist. Asia Stewart is a globally award-winning artist & Harvard+Cambridge alumni. The team has 3 hyper-growth exits and Masters in AI/ML.
If you want to learn more about all of our new companies, you can fill out the investor interest form here.
See you Monday.
PS. I published a book last year for founders, venture capitalists, and business leaders. “Inevitable” has now sold over 1,000 copies with a 5-star rating on Amazon. Link to Amazon here.