We focus on industries where distribution and customer access are the real bottlenecks:

• Physical AI
• Robotics & Mechatronics
• Semiconductors & Deep Systems
• Mobility & Smart Infrastructure
• Gaming & Esports
• Biomedical & Healthcare
• Aerospace & Defence
• Other system-heavy or frontier industries

Solo founders and teams are both welcome. What matters is your readiness to engage with real customers and execute in a demanding environment.

Antler Forge is an in-person execution sprint in Seoul, South Korea, designed for founders who have already shipped a product, prototype, or early deployment — and are now facing the hardest challenge: earning real customers.

The program runs for 4 weeks of focused market execution, culminating on the final day of Week 4, when investment decisions are made based on execution and customer signal — not speculation.

Forge is not an idea-stage program. It’s built for founders ready to prove their product belongs in the real world.

Week 1 — Customer Reality
Build trust within your cohort. Identify the real customer and buyer. Pressure-test assumptions around use cases, buying constraints, and decision-making. By the end of Week 1, you’ll know exactly who your product is for — and which doors are worth knocking on.

Week 2 — Live Proof
Refine your pitch for real buyers, not investors. Tighten demos to highlight adoption-critical value. Design realistic pilot strategies. Week 2 ensures you don’t waste high-quality enterprise access with underprepared conversations.

Week 3 — Friction & Signal
Targeted introductions to Samsung, Hyundai, SK, and other major enterprises. Put your product in front of real customers. Test messaging live. Weeks or months of cold outreach compressed into days of focused engagement.

Week 4 — Momentum
Structure pilots and trials in real customer environments. Collect direct feedback. Understand friction and buying constraints. Strong products gain momentum. Weak positioning becomes obvious — early enough to fix.

On the final day of Week 4, Forge culminates in structured evaluation and investment decisions based on what you executed, who you reached, and the customer pull you generated over the sprint.

South Korea is uniquely suited for early adoption testing — not because it’s forgiving, but because it’s fast, demanding, and execution-driven. While Korea is smaller in geography and population than most G7 countries, it consistently operates at G7-level — and in key areas, above it — across the metrics that matter for hard tech adoption.

Korea ranks #4 globally in AI competitiveness and invests over 5% of GDP in R&D, one of the highest innovation intensities in the world. It is also home to 15 Fortune Global 500 companies, placing it in the same industrial range as major G7 economies — between the UK (17) and Canada (14) — despite its smaller size. Korea’s total trade volume exceeds $1.3T, ranking among the strongest export economies globally, with a huge trade surplus second only to Germany among G7-level exporters.

This scale and density create a uniquely fast enterprise market. In a geographically compact ecosystem, world-class operators are unusually concentrated, compressing months of outreach into weeks of execution.

Antler Forge is built inside this environment, providing structured enterprise access through Antler Korea’s partner network — including Samsung, SK Hynix, Hyundai Motor Group, LG, Hanwha Aerospace, POSCO, and more. This is not about demo days or logo exposure. It’s about real operator conversations, pilot discussions, and commercial execution pathways that typically take months or years of cold outreach to unlock.

This is why you should come to Seoul.

If selected for investment, you will receive $400,000 (up to $500,000) in funding at the end of the Antler Forge. This investment is structured in two parts:

• $250,000 for 10% equity via SAFE

• $150,000 via an uncapped SAFE with a Most Favored Nation (MFN) clause

An uncapped SAFE with MFN means that our SAFE investment does not have a valuation cap. Instead, we receive the same terms as the most favorable investor in your next priced round, ensuring you get flexibility on valuation in future funding rounds and the best possible deal—all while securing early capital.

You will not have to pay any fee for participating in the residency. 

Founders selected for Antler Forge gain access to world-class technical perks and partner resources designed to accelerate execution from day one. These include:

• $650,000 in credits and tooling available immediately upon joining, supporting rapid development and deployment.
• GPU compute, inference, and fine-tuning support to optimize production-grade AI systems.
• Cloud infrastructure credits through leading providers, including AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, NVIDIA, and other partners.
• Access to specialized infrastructure across AI, robotics, and deep systems — from model tooling to deployment-grade platforms.
• Discounts and credits for system-heavy technologies, such as data infrastructure, ML optimization, and enterprise-ready tooling.
• Ongoing support through Antler’s global ecosystem of technical experts, operators, and partner networks.

For companies that become part of the Antler portfolio, partner support expands further — with total perks reaching $4M+ across the portfolio journey.

All perks are available from the start of the sprint, ensuring founders have the infrastructure and resources to build, validate, and scale alongside real enterprise adoption.

Antler Forge is designed as the beginning of a long-term partnership — not the end of a 4-week sprint. After the program, teams that receive investment continue working closely with Antler as they scale beyond the initial execution phase.

• Follow-on support: Antler has dedicated capital for follow-on investment and may participate in future rounds through Antler Elevate, our global growth platform.
• Investor access: Founders gain access to Antler’s global network of leading VCs, strategic partners, and operators as they raise and expand internationally.
• Ongoing guidance: Continued support from the Antler team and the broader founder community beyond the sprint.
• Long-term ecosystem: Portfolio companies remain connected to Antler’s resources — including partner perks, technical infrastructure, and a global community of ambitious builders.

We don’t just run a sprint. We back founders for the long term.

Forge is designed to support global founders, and we accept companies incorporated in Korea, the United States (Delaware), or Singapore.

Korea is a common and strategically attractive option for Forge participants. Incorporating in Korea can unlock meaningful local advantages — including eligibility for government-linked innovation support and grant pathways that, in some cases, may reach $500K+ through Antler Korea’s partnerships and local ecosystem programs.

US (Delaware) and Singapore entities are also widely recognized and remain strong options for founders planning international fundraising and global expansion.

If you are not yet incorporated — or are considering restructuring — Antler can provide guidance during the sprint to help you evaluate the right setup based on your business model, customer pathway, and long-term growth strategy.

Yes. Founders can apply even if they have already raised funding.

Forge is designed for early-stage teams — typically from pre-seed through early traction — who have shipped a product, prototype, or initial deployment and are now focused on earning real customer adoption.

If you’ve raised capital, we’ll evaluate your application based on:

• Whether Forge can still drive meaningful execution progress in the next 4 weeks
• Whether enterprise adoption, pilots, and customer pull remain your primary bottleneck
• Whether your company is still at a stage where Antler’s early-stage investment model is the right fit

Teams that are already operating at a later growth stage, with significant funding and established commercial scale, may be better suited for other platforms.