Day Zero Investing - Working with Founders Right From The Start

Featuring: Christoph Klink - Partner At Antler.

Antler is a global early-stage VC. The firm leads in ‘Day Zero’ investing, an approach to venture capital focused on partnering with founders pre-launch. Antler systematically removes capital and network constraints for early-stage technology entrepreneurs by providing co-founder matching, deep business model validation, initial capital, expansion support, and follow-on funding. The firm is present in 30 cities across most leading technology ecosystems globally and has made over 1,300 investments into early-stage startups. Antler has been repeatedly recognized by Pitchbook as the world’s most active angel and seed-stage investor. Christoph Klink, Partner, Antler

Christoph Klink is a partner at Antler based in Germany. Antler is the world’s leading day zero investor and the most active early-stage VC firm in Europe.

Christoph is responsible for Antler’s investments across Central Europe. Since launching its first residency for founders in Berlin in 2021, Antler has made >80 investments into tech startups, spanning multiple sectors that include climatetech, fintech and healthtech. Many of these startups are now recognised as the most promising startups in the DACH region, including NeoCarbon, clare&me and Tapline.

In the last three years, Christoph has run residencies for hundreds of founders in Berlin, Amsterdam and Munich. Antler is specifically designed to remove the barriers to entrepreneurship and to support a new generation of diverse tech founders. Founders participating in the residencies have come from 50+ different nationalities and a third of the startups have at least one female founder.

Christoph is recognised as one of the leading experts on early-stage investment trends in Germany and has published reports on the demographics of DACH unicorn founders and the rise of technical founders in Europe.