Often individuals have great ideas but fail to execute them because of inadequate guidance. Antler, a global Venture Capital and startup generator firm aims to enable entrepreneurs to build and scale their business. The company has recently announced Rajiv Srivastava, co-founder of Urban Ladder as the Country Head for their operations in India.
Rajiv has a strong experience in the industry with companied like Infosys, Yahoo and then his own startup Urban Ladder. “It aims to find entrepreneurs at the minus-one to zero phase; those who want to get into entrepreneurship and maybe just have an idea and not even a co-founder. Over a 10-week period, Antler can take them to their co-founder and idea; over the next four months, it aims to take them to Series A-readiness,” he said regarding operations of Antler.
The company is focused on setting base for early-stage entrepreneurs. Rajiv said in an interview that he loves working in the startup ecosystem and making people successful as much as he loves building systems and products. His position at Antler will fulfill both these roles. During his break period, he came to the realization that more than building a startup from scratch, he would be a better fit at an early stage Venture Capital firm as it involved both “coaching and building”.
Rajiv, during his 10-year journey came to the conclusion that Indian startup ecosystem has matured and there is ample of talent in market. He believes that everyone is competing for the same talent but an entrepreneur needs to start earlier “in the funnel to widen it and create more talent”.
During this lockdown period, Rajiv got in touch with Antler and spoke the executives there and he could feel the energy he felt while starting Urban Ladder. He stated, “It’s a sector-agnostic model that’s in eight countries in two years. And I was excited by the vision to create the next hundreds and thousands of startups at Antler, and make a real impact on founders.”
Antler is curating a technology platform to help the young entrepreneurs to cultivate their ideas. It comes in at a stage when the individual doesn’t know what to do next once he/she has an idea. They plan on selecting right ideas and pave the path for them to meet the right people. Their idea is to come in much before an accelerator and enhance the value for the startup.