The last few years have provided a rocky landscape for startups and founders. Following the global COVID-19 pandemic, many expected business conditions would bounce back once vaccines had been distributed and borders opened. But what we have experienced since has been significant uncertainty and angst about inflation, rising interest rates, market declines, bank failures, and threats of recessions.
Despite this, entrepreneurship is accelerating around the globe and the resulting unstoppable wave of innovation.
So how does that happen?
Technological advancements
For one, the tools available to support budding entrepreneurs have never been more powerful and simpler to use. Just consider technologies like Open AI’s Chat GPT which catapulted to 100 million users within two months of launching.
Not only that, these technologies continue to make the world and our communities borderless, and in turn entrepreneurship becomes increasingly global.
For example, cloud computing has enabled founders to build businesses from anywhere around the world at a fraction of the cost it would have been years ago.
The technology adoption S-curve is becoming almost vertical:
- It took the telephone 75 years to reach 50 million customers…
- It took Facebook 2 years, and
- It took Pokemon Go just 19 days to reach the same audience size
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More people want to pursue entrepreneurship
Never before have so many people wanted to leave the formal economy to go and build high-growth technology companies. But not only that millennials are fuelling tremendous change.
Representing 25% of the global population, this generation is emerging as the leaders of tomorrow but for the first time in history, this group is the first generation to earn less than their parents. Along with that, student debts have hit record levels and house prices are 5x compared to what they were 25 years ago.
These economic circumstances, paired with the reality that traditional career safety nets become increasingly unreliable, are driving a change in the career choices of students with Millenials increasingly choosing tech and innovation as a career:
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Access to capital and global markets
It has also never been easier to access capital and global markets. Antler is an example of this.
With a mission to democratize entrepreneurship, we have consciously spread our roots further to help make investment (and entrepreneurship) available to all.
Since launching in 2018, the firm has expanded into six continents and 27 cities in both developing and developed countries. Over that time, we’ve created and invested in over 1,000 portfolio companies with our funded founders encompassing nearly 100 nationalities.
Learn more about the investment opportunities Antler provides founders. LINK
As the world’s problems get bigger and more complex—and challenging economic conditions continue— an immense opportunity awaits those who are ready to build a great company to solve them - will it be you?
The most driven founders are joining Antler—the world's day zero investor—to solve important problems. Apply to one of our residencies in 27 cities around the world.
