Global venture capital firm Antler, which has already made over a dozen bets in India after its launch in the country earlier this year, said that it has raised over $300 million (Rs 2261 crore) for its fund so far.
The investors in the fund include Schroders, Vækstfonden, and Phoenix Group, said Antler in a statement.
Antler will continue with its strategy to extend pre-seed funding to startups primarily but going forward it will also provide follow-on capital to its portfolio companies up to the Series C stage, it added.
The venture capital firm, founded in 2017 by Magnus Grimeland, also said that it plans to make bets outside its portfolio at the seed and Series A stages.
Antler noted that it has recruited new partners Naman Budhdeo, Erik Jonsson, Jiho Kang, and Subir Lohani to lead its new Canada, Vietnam, Korea, and Indonesia teams, respectively, to expand its senior team and its global presence.
It has also roped in Teddy Himler from SoftBank as a partner of the late-stage investment team.
Antler currently has over 350 companies globally across more than 30 industries. Notably, 40% of its companies have at least one female cofounder, it said.
Antler had launched in India with the aim of deploying $100 million in the country over the next three years. It has already invested in 13 startups across sectors such as fintech, software as a service (SaaS), edtech, e-commerce, direct to consumer (D2C), and HR-tech.
The investments in India include tech-enabled leadership development platform Peak Performer, interactive coding platform Codedamn, a vertical SaaS startup Bookee, social investment platform Flow Club, and social music platform Humit. The names of the other startups will be disclosed later, it said.
“The 13 portfolio startups were selected from nearly 5000 startups representing 8000 founders - making the funnel amongst the largest and the most selective in the country, at an acceptance rate of less than 0.3%," said Rajiv Srivatsa, partner at Antler India.
“Additionally, the large volumes of inbound applications to the fund means that we see more than two-thirds of all startups in the idea or pre-traction phase in India - this place us in a unique position of getting the first glimpse into new ideas and startups the next generation of Indian founders are aspiring to build," he added.
In preparation for its India launch, Antler had hired Srivatsa, co-founder of Urban Ladder, to lead its local operations last year.https://www.vccircle.com/vc-firm-antler-hires-urban-ladder-co-founder-rajiv-srivatsa-for-india-entry
Earlier in January, FirstPrinciples venture capital founder Nitin Sharma also joined Antlerhttps://www.vccircle.com/firstprinciples-vc-founder-nitin-sharma-joins-antler-india as a partner to co-lead India operations with Srivatsa.
