According to The Wall Street Journal, early-stage venture firm Antler made over 400 investments in 2025, a massive jump from roughly 100 in 2020. The Singapore-based firm just closed a new $160 million U.S.-focused fund in December 2025, which founder and CEO Magnus Grimeland says will fuel about 500 investments in 2026. Analytics firm Dealroom named Antler the most active global AI investor of 2024. The firm operates “founder residencies” in 27 cities, hosting 50-100 founders at a time to help build businesses from the ground up. Despite a broader venture slowdown, Antler raised $510 million total in 2025 from LPs like the New Mexico State Investment Council and university endowments. Grimeland claims the firm is highly selective, investing in just 2.7 out of every 1,000 founder applicants.
The Spray and Pray Debate
Here’s the thing: Antler’s strategy is a direct counter-trend. The entire venture industry is pulling back. PitchBook data shows U.S. VC deals dropped nearly 20% in 2025, with seed and pre-seed deals (Antler’s bread and butter) down almost 30%. Fundraising is weak too. So while everyone else is getting cautious, Antler is writing more checks than ever. It’s the ultimate “spray and pray” approach, a term they probably hate but that perfectly describes placing hundreds of small bets hoping a few explode.
And look, the data they cite is fascinating. Peter Walker from Carta noted that in simulations, diversified, high-volume portfolios actually beat concentrated ones, with median multiples of 2.5x vs. 1.9x. That’s the core of their argument. But it excludes the top 5% of funds—you know, the Sequoias and a16zs of the world that make consensus, high-conviction bets and chase outsized returns. Antler’s model seems designed to generate solid, but maybe not legendary, returns by catching a lot of little waves instead of hunting for one tsunami.
The AI-Fueled Fundraising Engine
So how are they raising all this money when others can’t? Grimeland is pretty clear: it’s the AI hype cycle. LPs are terrified of missing the next big thing and are desperate for “exposure” at the earliest possible stage. Antler’s model, with its global scouting network and factory-like residency programs, positions itself as the perfect funnel to capture every potential AI-related startup idea on the planet. It’s a compelling pitch. “You want in on AI? We’ll get you into hundreds of AI-*inflected* companies before they even have a real product.”
But is that sustainable? The exit market is still sluggish. Antler’s banner win is a secondary sale in telecom startup Airalo that returned a staggering 362x. That’s awesome, but it’s one data point from 2019. They’ve had some small acquisitions, but zero IPOs. The real test is whether this portfolio of 400+ companies, and the 500 more coming, can produce consistent, real liquidity for their investors in a market that’s still pretty frosty. One home run is great, but you need a whole team of hitters to justify this volume.
What It Means For Founders and The Market
For founders, especially first-timers, Antler’s expansion is probably a net positive. It’s another source of non-dilutive grant-like funding and structured support to go from zero to one. Their global reach means an entrepreneur in, say, Nairobi or Stockholm can access the same program as someone in New York. That’s democratizing in a way.
But I have to wonder about the dilution of attention. With 45 partners each writing about 10 checks a year, how much hands-on help can any one company really get? It feels more like a highly systematized launchpad than a traditional, engaged VC partner. And for the market, it injects a ton of capital at the very earliest stage, which could inflate pre-seed valuations artificially or create more “zombie” startups that get just enough to exist but not enough to truly scale. It’s a massive experiment in venture scale economics. We’ll see in five years if it was genius or madness.
