Antler, a global early-stage venture capital firm, has closed three pre-seed investments of €100,000 each as part of its Dutch portfolio expansion. The three startups selected by the investment committee of Antler include Pal, Acroya, and Talkshop.
With this new investment, Antler is supporting startups in the field of palliative care, luxury home-dining and social shopping.
Focus on exceptional startup founders
Founded in Singapore in 2017, Antler has been on a mission to invest in founders displaying exceptional talent, whether they are working as a solo founder or have a fully formed team. The VC firm funds these exceptional founders itself and also helps them raise funds from other top European VCs.
Marijn Settels, Investment Manager at Antler Netherlands, says, “We are very excited to invest in Pal, Acroya and TalkShop. Out of over thousands applications, we worked closely with 57 founders to support them in forming strong co-founding teams, validating their business ideas, and building early traction.”
Antler says it currently invests in nearly 1 per cent of more than 50,000 founders annually. The investments range from pre-seed up to Series C and in multiple industries, including AI, Robotics, drones, fintech, proptech, and healthtech. The Investment committee included representatives of Index Venture, GFC, Balderton, Visionaries Club, Slingshot, Begin Capital, Fortino, Peak Capital, Vorwerk Ventures, MSM, Local Globe, and btov.
“After two intense months, we decided to invest in these three companies building exciting businesses in palliative care, home fine dining experiences and social e-commerce. The founders have impressed us week by week with their grit, continuous iteration and execution power and we look forward to supporting the teams further on their journey to building highly successful companies,” she adds.
Pal: what you need to know
Pal is a startup that began its journey at the fourth Antler cohort held in Amsterdam. The co-founders, Nara Moripen and Azi Doost, wanted to turn their years of digital health consultancy experience and scaling tech startups respectively, into something impactful.
The idea of starting Pal also stems from Nara’s personal experience of caring for her mother, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Having built a close friendship at Antler cohort, Nara and Azi decided to build Pal offering digital palliative care for families affected by life-limiting illness.
“When I reflect back on the time when I was caring for my mom, who was receiving palliative care, you realise just how much of it is left to chance. Healthcare systems around the world do not have enough resources to meet the demand for palliative care with traditional means, and they have long relied on families to deliver the care that they’re not able to,” says Nara Moripen.
“We’re building Pal to enable family caregivers to deliver better quality of care for a loved one with a life-limiting illness. This is such a precious time in their lives, and we want to play a part in allowing families to be present so that they can make time for what really matters, rather than worry about their role as a caregiver,” says Azi Doost.
Moripen adds, “It’s jarring to believe that unexpected caregivers like myself can become skilled, equipped and prepared overnight. To expect them to fill this giant void left by the healthcare system, and to carry the enormous responsibility of caring for a loved one with all the complex medical challenges that come with a life-limiting illness.”
The co-founders say they have received great support from clinicians and caregivers and they are building the product with their guidance. Antler will act as a sounding board to help Nara and Azi better integrate with the local startup and investor ecosystem. “Pal is already looking to raise the next round, to be able to grow their team with technical and medical experts and accelerate their product launch,” says Doost.
TalkShop: what you need to know
TalkShop is an expert-led commerce platform that also began as a solution to a personal problem. Alex Sowter, co-founder of TalkShop, was looking to purchase a new guitar during the pandemic but couldn’t go to a store due to lockdown. After six weeks of internet research, he still could not manage to buy the right product.
He says this personal shopping experience made him see the need for an opportunity to talk to an expert. During the Antler programme in Amsterdam, Sowter met Daniel Graaf, his co-founder and both began building TalkShop as a marketplace that “connects brands and consumers to product experts, helping them choose the right products.”
Though incorporated in the UK, TalkShop is an Amsterdam-based startup with global ambitions. Sowter leads business while Graaf looks at technical elements of the platform. With social shopping booming in select Asian countries, TalkShop sees the possibility to build a unique product not only for Europe but also for the United States.
For TalkShop, the immediate challenge is to find great brands that it can partner with and enable its experts to recommend their products. The startup is currently working with big ticket products like outdoor goods, sports equipment, consumer technology, to name a few.
With Antlers supporting their ambition, Sowter and Graaf see an opportunity to overcome the obstacles. “Antler is fantastic when looking for introductions to VCs, people in the industry, or for advice on anything from top-level strategy to how to sort out legals within the business,” says Graaf.
Acroya: what you need to know
Devon Scoulelis and Thomas Scholte founded Acroya earlier this year to elevate home dining experience. Scoulelis says home dining has increased drastically post-pandemic but fine food lovers only have limited options. With choices limited to food delivery companies like UberEats or recipe kits like HelloFresh, the co-founders say fine dining experience is lost at home.
With quality restaurants now looking for new ways to grow and build sales channels, Acroya is entering the scene as a digital chef-to-consumer platform. Scoulelis says Acroya wants to deliver quality restaurant meal kits, unique food and beverage products to people’s homes across the country.
“At Acroya, we’re on a mission to help people connect with their food in new ways through elevated and sustainable home dining experiences,” says Devon Scoulelis.
Acroya is a startup trying to usher in a new segment of home food delivery while also aiming to operate in a large $60B meal kit market. It wants to redefine this industry while continuing to involve its customers in their dining preparation and experience.
With the support of Antlers, Scoulelis says they have validated their MVP and shown positive unit economics by partnering with great restaurants and chefs. It is now focussing on adding new quality restaurants and chefs to its platform, building key partnerships with food and beverage brands across the Netherlands, and expanding its reach.
Scoulelis says Antler has helped them with ongoing feedback, support across business models, growth options, new deal structures, and team development. With a pre-seed round done, Acroya is looking to build its brand, launch and deliver nearly 100 meal kits to culinary experts to test, and also close its first angel investor round.
Amsterdam tops startup ecosystem in the European Union
The pre-seed investment announced by Antler to support three Dutch startups further shows how Amsterdam has become the major startup ecosystem in Europe. According to Dealroom, it is the second major startup ecosystem in Europe, second only to London. In the European Union, Amsterdam tops the list of the most influential hub.
Devon and Thomas are both based in Amsterdam and the co-founders of Acroya say they “enjoy the mix of start-up culture, progressive restaurant scene and growing culinary creators.”
“Based on this, we saw a real opportunity to grow the model from Amsterdam where there is a growing density of quality restaurants and chefs, but still a close network of food innovators in the sector that we could reach out to and work with,” says Devon Scoulelis.
