Two years ago, Norwegian Magnus Grimeland established the startup creation platform Antler in a closed down military shipyard in Brooklyn. His mission is to help serious entrepreneurs all over the world to succeed with their enterprises. Read more about how the Norwegian startup creation platform in New York works.
Magnus Grimeland knew what he wanted. After consultancy at McKinsey he went to Singapore and founded online fashion retailer Zalora South East Asia. This gave him the idea of establishing a startup creation platform bringing together would-be entrepreneurs with different and varied ideas teaming up to develop business ideas.
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Movers and shakers are incompatible
Why did a Harvard graduate leave a successful career in retail to identify and nurture next generation of game-changing companies? The idea is to help connect founders to mentors and potential co-founders in the very early stages of building a company, a demanding selection process for every entrepreneur. For obvious reasons.
The reason most start-up companies fail is not their products or their ideas but rather that its movers and shakers are incompatible. So, in short Antler sources the most promising young talents, puts them together to co-found businesses that they will own and run, and provides them with the mentorship and access to funding they need to succeed.
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Two months introduction
Magnus is leading a global team of professionals, while creating a pipeline for top talent to pursue a career in entrepreneurship and innovation. Only three per cent of applicants are accepted into the program.
It all starts with a cohort where circa 100 promising entrepreneurs come together for two months presenting their ideas. Antler then picks the selected few which they believe in and invests $140,000 for a 10% equity stake. Put simply, Antler’s mission is to “turn the world’s top talent into great founders of great companies”.
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Building companies from scratch
From its first cohort in 2018 Antler invested in 13 companies and so far, a total of 62 founders from 22 companies have founded 29 companies. Quite an achievement in two years. The companies represent a wide range of industries from real estate to e-commerce.
To make Antler a professional start up platform Magnus Grimeland and his partners have interviewed VCs, accelerators and organizations all over the world and created a program helping founders build companies from scratch.
Talent first
Talent is important, then comes co-founding teams. Great talent from around the globe brought together in specific teams, securing investment and building the companies. That’s a very unique concept.
Antler does not create franchises. The company is now represented in the US, Europe, Australia and Africa. New partners are added continuosly to support its companies.
Feature image (on top): Antler new lab, New York. Photo: Spencer Lowell
Norwegian Startup Creation Platform in New York, written by Tor Kjolberg