WELCOME TO ANTLER INSIGHTS

You'll take too long failing if you actually build your product. Don't do it!

If you are pitching a VC, you aren’t succeeding because you are sailing through your slides perfectly. You are succeeding if the meeting transforms into a dialogue driven by the investor asking the right questions.

Reflection on My Time as a Visiting Analyst at Antler Canada

Seed stage VC as an asset class offers something that is extremely rare: truly uncorrelated returns.

Total addressable market is calculated bottom up, not top down.

Concision improves a pitch. And the exercise of finding concision improves a founder.

Done right, a VC that can offer some form of incubation incurs a competitive advantage that leads directly to better investment returns.

This is a verbatim republication of an article I wrote in 2006. I think it as relevant today as it was two decades ago.

Antler Canada reveals revamped Canadian investment terms

Explore the transformative journey of Steven Gans, an AI enthusiast who leveraged his design background and Antler's support to pioneer groundbreaking startups and navigate the evolving venture capital landscape.

Join us as Sia shares his entrepreneurial journey, highlighting the challenges, lessons, and strategies that shaped his approach to product management.

Meet Mike Kim, a visionary who has navigated a fascinating career path from finance to technology and, ultimately, to founding his own ventures.

Exciting news for entrepreneurs ready to leave their mark: We've launched a pivotal initiative that spotlights the diverse opportunities within Canada's thriving industries. Our report curates pivotal problem statements from Canada's leading tech visionaries, founders, and VCs, offering aspiring entrepreneurs a pathway to impactful innovation. Discover 20+ big opportunities pinpointed by top Canadian minds, spread across six fast-growing industries. Each challenge is an invitation to create and innovate—leading the way to the future. We hope it will serve as a roadmap for aspiring founders ready to build tomorrow's solutions today.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our latest founder spotlight, we explore the journey of Christabel Kim, whose diverse international background and keen interest in problem-solving led her to the crossroads of technology and entrepreneurship. Passionate about utilizing technology to streamline services and solve real-world problems, Christabel delves into her experiences in consulting and product management, and how they guided her to Antler. Today, she shares her insights and the pivotal moments that shaped her entrepreneurial path.

In today's founder spotlight, we delve into the story of Emily Farrar, a US-born engineer turned climate tech innovator and her journey from a family of scientists to co-founding the forward-thinking startup on the edge of food tech and climate tech - Genuine Taste. Emily’s pivot from advising on renewable energy to tackling the real-world impacts of climate change led her to Canada and ultimately to the entrepreneurial platform Antler. She connected with a biophysics Ph.D. from Cambridge Pooya Mamaghani, and together, they launched Genuine Taste to revolutionize the alternative meat industry. They're not merely joining the plant-based movement; they're enhancing it with cultivated fat, aiming to make sustainable proteins as delicious and nutritious as their traditional counterparts. As Emily transitions from technical expertise to first-time CEO, Genuine Taste has moved from concept to market contender, negotiating with multinational companies, and shaping a future where sustainable food is not an alternative, but the standard.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. For our latest founder spotlight, we sat down with Mehdi Karamneja, a tech-savvy with a unique perspective on the intersection of technology and interactive arts. He is passionate about creating interdisciplinary tech solutions that people use every day. Today Mehdi shares his experiences, and how they shaped him and led him to Antler.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. For our latest founder spotlight, we sat down with Devyn Olin, a tech enthusiast with a unique perspective on the intersection of technology and the fashion industry. She is passionate about moving the fashion industry forward by leveraging new tech solutions and data to engage and cater to the next generation of fashion consumers. Today Devyn shares her experiences, and how they shaped her and led her to Antler.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. For our latest founder spotlight, we sat down with Elena Bassiachvili, who is an engineer and a Jill of all trades. She is passionate about solving real-life problems with technology and having a positive impact on society by finding solutions in the Clean Tech space. She believes that this can be achieved by building her own venture. Today Elena shares her experiences, and how they shaped her and led her to Antler.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our content series—” It All Starts with People”—we spotlight the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with worldwide. Each story is a window into their passions, motivations, and vision—the reasons they build and the positive dent they aim to make in the world. This time, we sat down with Tina Hashemnia, who decided to take on the founder journey with Antler, after years of experience as an operator in startups, scale-ups, and venture capital. Today, Tina shares her past experiences, and how they shaped her thinking, and helped her get ready to become a successful founder.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our latest founder spotlight, we sat down with Natalia Bakaeva, who is an architect and artist, and has over 15 years of experience in design and architecture. She is passionate about creating physical forms and believes architecture is a powerful tool for social change. With that, she strives to design solutions that are inclusive, accessible, and inspiring. Today Natalia shares her past experiences, how they shaped her and led her to Antler, and her plans for the future.

Antler was founded on the belief that people innovating is the key to building a better future. In our content series—”It All Starts with People”—we spotlight the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with around the world. Each story is a window into their passions, motivations, and vision—the reasons they are building and the positive dent they are aiming to make on the world. This time we sat down with Curtis Carmichael aka CC who is an entrepreneur, educator, programmer, athlete, Forbes 30u30 in Education, and author, just to name a few titles that describe him. Today he shares with us a little bit of his story and the key milestones that led him to Antler.

Founding a startup can be an incredibly tough process for any entrepreneur, no matter the experience level. To provide some insight into the entrepreneurship process, Bernie Li, General Partner at Antler Canada speaks with Brendan Herjavec of the Building Blocks Podcast on a recent episode, and sheds some light on his entrepreneurship path, the concept of the “power rule” in investing, the founder mentality, and what it means to truly be a “good” founder.

Founding a startup can be an incredibly tough process for any entrepreneur, no matter the experience level. To provide some insight into the entrepreneurship process, Naman Budheo, General Partner at Antler Canada speaks with Evan McCann of The Hard Part on his podcast, and discusses his own path to becoming a founder, how to move past entrepreneurship failures, entering developed industries with heavy-hitting competitors, and how exactly he became an integral part of Antler Canada.

Founding a startup can be an incredibly tough process for any entrepreneur, no matter the experience level. To provide some insight into the entrepreneurship process, Bernie Li, General Partner at Antler Canada speaks with Craig Major of Toronto Starts on his podcast, and sheds some light on his own journey, the concept of “founder empathy”, trials and tribulations on the path to success, and some helpful advice on how to get your startup started.

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life? Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit. In the fourth episode of Founder Files, Elif Hiz interviews Liza Akhvledziani, the CEO and co-founder of Chexy, a platform designed to help tenants pay rent online while earning rewards and building credit. As one of the first entrepreneurs that Antler Canada invested in, Liza highlights her experiences, struggles, and triumphs as a founder, and discusses her future ambitions.

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life? Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit. In the third episode of Antler Canada's Founder Files, Elif Hiz interviews Justin Cuaresma, a founder in residence in our third residency. Justin is a Software Developer turned entrepreneur. He believes that the future of work is joyful. He bootstrapped CrowdParty, the “Netflix of workplace games,” and is now working on Delightful, a platform made for employees to foster deeper relationships through shared hobbies and interests! In this video, we’ll dive into Justin's experience at Antler so far and his learnings from the first 7 weeks of the program.

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life? Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit. In this episode of Antler Canada's Founder Files, Elif Hiz interviews Zane Hengsperger, the youngest founder in residence in our third residency. Zane is currently working with 2 other founders from the cohort and building Blymp, a platform that will empower podcasters to secure relevant brand partnerships. In this article, we’ll dive into Zane’s experience at Antler so far and his learnings from the first 6 weeks of the program.

Have you ever wondered what is it like to be a tech startup founder and bring an idea to life? Founder Files is a series of conversations with founders in the earliest days of their entrepreneurial journey hosted by Antler Canada. Guests are founders of our portfolio companies and founders in residence, currently building the next big ventures. Learn about their experiences of finding a co-founder, idea validation and product-market fit.

It's 2023. Women should be able to pursue any career they choose and have an equal playing field to thrive in it. While we would like to believe this is true, the reality is very different.

At Antler, we believe every massively successful business begins with an exceptional founding team. In our experience, factors and traits that make founders stand apart vary widely—from excellence in education and a previous place of work to an extraordinary personal journey. Antler has taken a systematic look at the exceptional founders whose companies crossed the legendary US$1 billion valuation mark in ecosystems around the world—DACH (Deutschland, Austria, and Switzerland) region (2022 and 2021), Africa, and Brazil—with the goal of identifying founder patterns that led to founding a unicorn. This month, we explore Canada, delving into the backgrounds of local founders, the higher institutions they attended, their work experience before launching their ventures, and more. Globally, 2021 saw a record number of venture capital (VC) investments with more than $650 billion invested, minting close to 1,100 unicorns across the globe. Canada has followed suit.

From software development roles at Dexter, Block, and Bannockburn Developments to diving into the realm of machine learning, explore the journey of an entrepreneur who, armed with extensive experience and the backing of Antler, transformed groundbreaking ideas into thriving startups, skillfully navigated the complexities of the VC landscape