Antler Strengthens Global Leadership Team With Two Significant Appointments
Antler, the global startup generator and early-stage VC, has appointed Edward Knight as a Global Partner and Annette Wilson as European Chair and Advisor of Antler. Knight will also become a board member. The pair join the early-stage VC, which has recently undergone significant global expansion, to strengthen Antler’s global and European team, supporting its founders, portfolio companies and the global Antler platform.
Globally, Antler has invested in more than 70 firms and plans to invest in more than 200 additional companies over the next twelve months. Knight and Wilson join Antler’s leadership team led by CEO and co-founder, Magnus Grimeland, most prominently known for co-founding Zalora, Southeast Asia’s largest fashion e-commerce company.
“So far, 2019 has been an exceptional year for Antler. We have grown our presence from our founding location in Singapore by opening seven new offices in London, Sydney, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Oslo Nairobi and New York,” says Magnus Grimeland, Founder and CEO of Antler.
“Our global reach, the innovative companies we have helped found, and the expertise of our team means we attract some of the brightest individuals in the industry, including Annette and Edward. We look forward to them becoming part of the Antler family and benefitting from their wealth of experience to help us achieve our ambitions.”
Knight and Wilson each bring different, significant experience to Antler:
Edward Knight has had a multi-decade career as a leader in European banking, most recently working at Goldman Sachs for just under fifteen years where he was a partner in the equities division, before retiring at the end of 2018. Prior to this, he was an Executive Director at Citigroup Global Markets for just under a decade. Edward’s passion at Goldman Sachs was people and culture where amongst other things, he was a co-sponsor of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Network in Europe.
Annette Wilson has spent the last twenty years in leadership roles in growth and venture capital firms that were focused on scaling businesses across geographies. She was founding CFO of European growth investor, Palamon Capital Partners, where she took the firm’s funds under management to €1.3bn. Most recently she was Partner and COO at Finch Capital, a fintech investor, focused on Europe and SouthEast Asia. Annette trained as a chartered accountant and also held senior roles in the insurance industry. She currently serves on the Venture Council of Invest Europe and is a former member of the Board of the British Venture Capital Association.
Edward Knight, Global Partner and Board member of Antler said, “I’m excited to join Antler’s global team and share my knowledge and experience to help build the next generation of innovative tech startups across the world.”
Annette Wilson, Advisor and European Chair of Antler said, “I am delighted to be joining the Antler team whose programme is impressive with its focus on building strong founding teams coupled with harnessing tech innovation to build successful businesses. I look forward to being part of Antler globally and also contributing to the European expansion of Antler, especially as today we are seeing an increasing number of highly innovative startups emerging across Europe and the European VC industry is achieving excellent returns.”
Antler runs a startup generator programme for entrepreneurs, which turns exceptional individuals into great founders of innovative businesses. Since it launched in 2018, Antler has selected over 650 entrepreneurs for inclusion into the programme.
Antler breaks down the barriers to entrepreneurship, enabling exceptional individuals to become great founders of world-changing tech startups. It attracts an incredibly diverse range of people, with founding teams so far comprising over 50 nationalities globally, and more than 50% of Antler’s portfolio companies have at least one female co-founder.
Aspiring entrepreneurs can apply now to join cohorts in Amsterdam, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Singapore, Sydney, New York and Nairobi.
Find out more about Antler here: https://www.antler.co/
