WELCOME TO ANTLER INSIGHTS

Nestled in the vibrant startup hub of Nairobi, Antler in Kenya brings together founders from all walks of life to build and invest in companies, tackling some of the most ambitious challenges in Africa. Sometimes that means starting from the very beginning—by lifting up young people in our region and providing them with the tools to drive the world forward. This time, through code. Find out about the incredible work done by Code Yetu, in partnership with Alphathesis and Antler in Kenya.

At Antler, we believe exceptional people are the key to building defining companies. But what makes a person exceptional, and how do personal characteristics or experiences increase the chances of building a successful tech company? Last month, we took a systematic look at the most exceptional founders of the 21st century in the DACH region to identify patterns that led up to founding a Unicorn. This month, we are doing the same across the African continent. Our findings reveal who Africa’s Unicorn, Soonicorn, and growth-stage startup founders are, which higher institutions they went to, how many years of work experience they had before launching their ventures, and more. Additionally, we have taken a closer look at the future state of the local ecosystem and put together data-driven predictions to provide more insight and understanding into the African startup ecosystem and the opportunities that lie ahead.

Antler US portfolio company Werkit, which connects high-growth software companies to remote self-managed teams, received the Covid-19 Innovation Award from the Smart City Expo World Congress today. The Covid-19 Innovation Award recognizes companies that have contributed to the successful transformation, adaption, or response of the world's cities to the pandemic. Werkit has connected workers in Zambia to remote digital jobs, digital banking services, skill advancement assistance, and a virtual community of support throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are delighted to be collaborating with Truecaller — one of the fastest-growing communications apps impacting the world, in a bid to strengthen our commitment to support our startup founders with their journey as entrepreneurs.

There several ways in which entrepreneurs build their businesses and in recent years, quite a few startup ecosystem players have entered the journey in order to support Entrepreneurs in their endeavor. Antler, a startup generator and early-stage VC has brought a unique approach for aspiring entrepreneurs by creating a program that allows them to find their co-founding team, define their business idea and an opportunity to receive an investment all in 11 weeks. Check out the feature on #BBC Africa as we welcome our second cohort of the Nairobi program to #buildnextwaveoftech in the next 11 weeks.

Africa, with its staggering young population, rapidly growing adoption of mobile technologies, increasing middle class and harbouring of 4/10 world’s fastest growing economies, is ready for a tech revolution and Antler is excited to bring its disruptive model to the continent.