Built With MongoDB: Antler

Siya Raj Purohit and Manuel Meyer
June 16, 2021 | Updated: October 17, 2022
#BuiltWithMongoDB#Startups

Antler is a global early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the defining technology companies of tomorrow. The firm has offices in 13 cities worldwide, across six continents. Founded in Singapore in 2017, Antler is on a mission to fundamentally improve the world by enabling and investing in the world's most exceptional people. Since its launch, Antler has invested in and helped build over 250 companies. Antler enables exceptional people to build impactful technology startups by building complementary teams, supporting the teams with deep business model validation, and providing a global platform to scale their startups — and that’s why we’re thrilled to announce the firm’s partnership with MongoDB for Startups.

We recently touched base with Antler Partner Björn Lindfors to talk about entrepreneurship, building and managing new companies, and partnering with MongoDB. Björn arrived at Antler after an incredible entrepreneurial journey of his own that included launching a web design studio to fix “crappy websites” during his university days, learning the ropes at Google, and serving as an executive of two companies in Singapore.

Antler has raised $78 million and has offices in 13 locations across the world.

MongoDB: How does Antler differentiate itself from other accelerator programs?

Björn: We’re technically not an accelerator. We’re even earlier than that: we bring together between 70-100 top performers who may not even have an idea yet for phase 1 of the program, where they collaborate with other aspiring entrepreneurs to come up with an investment-worthy idea they can present to our Investment Committee.

We’re very hands-on in our approach to venture building: We have a range of technical and business advisors who coach the entrepreneurs and follow their progress. For example, I’m still in weekly contact with many companies that we invested in during our 2018 sessions. We’re builders ourselves, and we want to keep adding value and serving as sounding boards for our community members.

MongoDB: What do you recommend to your CTO founders when building out their companies?

Björn: The first thing I encourage them to understand is that product isn’t everything. Building your product shouldn’t distract you from other things that are incredibly important for a successful business — for example, how to effectively run an engineering organization, how to hire good people, and how to make sure that your team members are constantly happy.

The real struggle for me in transitioning into a CTO role at one of my former companies was the management aspect. I had completely underestimated the human elements and how much time and effort you need to spend to ensure that people are feeling happy and productive. I always tell people to focus more energy on that.

MongoDB: Have you personally used MongoDB in your past companies?

Björn: Yes, I have used MongoDB quite a bit, especially during my consulting years. If you’re building something quickly and don’t quite know where to start, MongoDB is the perfect partner. MongoDB is convenient and flexible enough to adjust as you transform your prototype into something more permanent.

The first iteration of whatever you build is likely 80% wrong anyway, and you don’t want to be stuck with something clunky. For most consumer apps and business use cases with simple business logic, MongoDB works great.

MongoDB: How has the Antler community responded to the MongoDB for Startups partnership announcement?

Björn: When it was announced on our internal Slack group, which consists of thousands of people from our alumni and portfolio globally, there was a lot of excitement. MongoDB is part of the default stack that startups use to build businesses. I get questions from founders constantly about how to build, and I constantly advise them to use MongoDB. There’s no point in people teaching themselves something else for the purpose of building when MongoDB is the perfect default kit. We are excited to deepen the partnership over time.

MongoDB: Why should aspiring founders work with Antler?

Björn: If you’re driven, curious, and passionate about changing the world in some small, weird, and wonderful way, we are the right fit for you. We back founders working in all sectors and provide the right resources, mentorship, and community to help get their businesses off the ground.

MongoDB: What do you think the future of Antler looks like?

Björn: I think it could evolve in a few different ways. If you look at the entire investment landscape, at least here in Singapore and Southeast Asia, the seed investment sector has become very competitive. Seed investors are competing for deals and therefore have to provide strategic value along with funding to their portfolio companies in ways that they didn't have to before. Good entrepreneurs now have options, so the pressure is on investors to provide a lot of additional strategic value. Similarly, we’ll keep innovating on the services we can provide founders to help them be successful in this changing tech landscape.

Interested in learning more about MongoDB for Startups? Learn more about us here.

Special thanks to Andrew Bell for his help in compiling this piece!

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2021 Payment Trends Guide: What Corporate Clients Want From Their Bank

Payments data monetization is becoming the new battleground for financial services organizations and their corporate clients. Processing of payments data has evolved from a back-end operation to a critical space for innovation. Banks are determined to get more value out of payments data while corporate clients are willing to work with any partner that can help them do it. As one senior executive at a global bank commented: “(Data monetization) would have been very costly to do on a mainframe. The newer technologies like cloud allow you to do this in a much more efficient and effective way.” A recent survey of bank executives conducted by Celent, sponsored by MongoDB and Icon Solutions, revealed that payments data monetization is a high priority for key technology decision makers. Download the complete report here . What is payments data monetization? Payment data includes transaction records as well as data contained within messages. The monetization of payment data is relevant for a number of use cases, including: Using payments data to improve internal operations, identify clerical errors, and optimize procurement processes Improving straight-through-processing rate, which is the percentage of transactions that are passed through the system without manual intervention Incentivizing customers to make payments at different times to optimize the liquidity position of the bank Using payments data to enhance existing corporate-facing services Tracking payments and forecasting cash balances more accurately What's new in the payments industry? The time to invest in payments data monetization is now, according to a survey of hundreds of senior bank executives, corporate treasurers, and CFOs. Banks are eager to monetize their payments data, particularly as real-time payments accelerate and the push by the various regulators around the globe to adopt ISO 20022 intensifies. FedNow in the U.S. is the first true attempt to modernize the American payment landscape. At the same time, high demand for data-led services is prompting corporate clients to look beyond their existing banking partners to access new and alternative payment services. More than half of corporate clients surveyed relied on a partner other than their lead bank for cash forecasting (62%) and cash visibility (56%). The hope among banking professionals is that corporate clients would be willing to pay for service improvements and significant value-add services. But where banks see value-add features, clients see obligatory services their banking partners should offer by default. There are, however, opportunities for banks to justify additional fees, including: Using payment data to support new propositions and business models Driving value-added services through enriched third-party data sets Partnering with other organizations to launch new offerings Which services will corporate clients pay for? Corporate clients are seeking a wide range of payment services and are clear about the services they’re willing to pay for, including real-time cash balances and forecasting, better security and fraud protection, and data consolidated into a single dashboard. Services like virtual accounts, automated tracking, reconciliation of receivables, and better integration with corporate workflows are also considered high value but are seen as features that shouldn’t carry added fees, according to corporate clients. Their most sought-after services include: Consolidated real-time data from multiple banks in a single dashboard (38%) Real-time cash forecasting (37%) Better security and fraud protection (36%) Real-time cash balances (35%) Find out more about which services corporate clients are willing to pay for The push for ISO 20022 standardization The payments industry and corporate clients are in agreement about the need to adopt ISO 20022 message formats in its native JSON representation, which will allow richer data to be sent across the network and increase rates of automation without further adjustments to legacy data models in relational databases. According to the survey, banks plan to make significant investments in supporting ISO 20022 so they can offer improved services to corporate clients; 74% of banks see ISO 20022 migration as an investment opportunity in new data-led services. For their part, 32% of corporate clients want help managing ISO 20022 changes from their banking partners, and 31% said they would switch providers if it meant receiving help supporting ISO 20022 compliance. Cloud and agility Perhaps no sector of the market is more attached to monolithic legacy applications as the banking sector. But if banks wish to differentiate themselves through innovation, they’ll need to leverage modern data architectures to address customer needs with greater agility. Cloud technologies will be essential in the push to adopt modern database design because they offer the ability to create more flexible and responsive applications and microservices with on-demand scalability. According to the survey, banks have the opportunity to unlock long-term gains by combining data assets and integrating payments data into an enterprise-wide data strategy. As the survey points out, “Data monetization is a strategy, not a product.” Consolidated payment data and single-view dashboard The most sought-after payments service by finance executives — cited by 38% of corporate clients, 53% of which boast revenue of $500 million to $1 billion — is a single dashboard that provides a consolidated view of real-time data across all corporate bank partners. Although technology solutions for this service exist, implementation lags. Banks should embrace this critical need as an opportunity to differentiate themselves from competitors. Find out how MongoDB brings data agility to payment workflows

June 15, 2021
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Leveraging Database Observability at MongoDB: Unlocking Performance Insights and Optimization Strategies

This post is the first in a three-part series on leveraging database observability. Observability has evolved into an essential information technology component, offering advanced insights into system performance beyond traditional monitoring. While monitoring aims to identify problems, observability helps understand and resolve them. Businesses prioritizing observability experience less downtime, leading to enhanced user experiences and improved ROI. Indeed, Splunk’s The State of Observability 2023 report quantified the financial impact of downtime—more than $150,000 per hour. Furthermore, observability leaders reported 33% fewer outages and achieved eight times better ROI than new adopters. Throughout this series, we'll define database observability at MongoDB, explore our suite of tools, delve into third-party integrations, and discuss everyday use cases. We will also establish a shared methodology and vocabulary for discussing observability at MongoDB and highlight the tools and features that have delivered value for our customers. Observability and MongoDB’s strategy Monitoring involves using tools to track real-time operations and alert teams to issues. As defined by Gartner, observability evolves monitoring into a process that provides deep insights into digital business applications, enhancing innovation and customer experience. The key difference is that monitoring detects the presence of issues, while observability gathers detailed information to understand and resolve them, which is crucial for modern IT infrastructure needs. Databases, in particular, play a critical role in this IT ecosystem, where performance and resilience directly impact business outcomes. This advancement is essential for DevOps, Database Administrators, and economic buyers responsible for these databases, as it enhances system reliability, encourages innovation, and supports financial objectives. Ultimately, observability provides comprehensive insights into system performance, health, and reliability by seamlessly integrating and contextualizing telemetry data. MongoDB leverages a unique observability strategy with out-of-the-box tools that automatically monitor and optimize customer databases. Explicitly designed for MongoDB environments, our system provides continuous feedback and answers critical questions—What is happening? Where is the issue? Why is it occurring? How do I fix it?—to enhance performance, increase productivity, and minimize downtime. Supporting MongoDB Atlas (our fully managed platform), Cloud Manager, and Ops Manager, as well as tailored monitoring solutions for the full range of developer data platform products (from enhanced search functionalities to app services and search nodes). Our approach meets the evolving needs of customer applications by: Leveraging MongoDB expertise: The MongoDB observability suite integrates efficiency and best practices from the beginning of the development cycle. As MongoDB platform experts, we use our deep knowledge to provide top-tier optimization insights. We apply our extensive understanding of our tools to ensure our customers benefit from a high-performing and resilient database. Offering streamlined metrics: We integrate our metrics seamlessly into our customers' central observability stacks and workflows. This creates a 'plug-and-play' experience that effortlessly aligns with popular monitoring systems like Datadog, New Relic, and Prometheus. Thus, it provides a unified view of customer application performance and deep insights into their database within a comprehensive dashboard. Breaking down MongoDB’s observability offerings Tailored database performance management MongoDB employs automated tools for comprehensive database performance management, focused on real-time optimization, strategic scaling, and best practices in schema design. Using out-of-the-box tools ensures high-performing, scalable, and cost-efficient database environments ideal for modern applications. Key features include: Performance Advisor : Provides index recommendations to improve read and write performance, significantly boosting overall efficiency. Schema Advisor : Supports flexible schema design and query execution analysis to enhance performance, scalability, and validation rules for schema compliance. Opt-in Autoscaling (only available in Atlas): Optimizes resource use, manages operational costs, ensures continuous availability, and adjusts resources based on demand, preventing downtimes. Performance Advisor in action Foundational monitoring for in-depth insights MongoDB provides foundational monitoring tools and out-of-the-box insights for optimal cluster health and performance after initial database setup. These tools both help reduce the burden of performing manual tasks while laying the groundwork for detailed and granular analysis of metrics and system performance aimed at enhancing query performance, reducing execution times, and lowering resource usage. These tools include: Monitoring Charts : These charts offer detailed metrics on hardware, database operations, replication status, sharded, and search/vector search with a fine-grained metric resolution to identify issues and track trends. Real-Time Performance Panel : This panel displays live network traffic, database operations, and hardware stats, helping to identify critical operations, evaluate query times, and monitor network load and throughput. Query Insights : The recently announced Namespace Insights provides users with collection-level latency statistics. At the same time, the enhanced cluster-centric Query Profiler gives an expanded view of query performance, significantly enhancing visibility and operational efficiency across the cluster. Learn more about both! Comprehensive alerting and seamless integrations MongoDB Atlas's sophisticated alerting system offers over 200 event types, providing teams with comprehensive control and visibility over their environments. Users can fine-tune their alerting strategy with customization options to fit their specific requirements. Additionally, MongoDB Atlas enhances team collaboration and ensures a unified view of application performance through seamless integrations with third-party tools like Slack, PagerDuty, and DataDog. These integrations simplify management tasks and leverage existing workflows for optimum operational effectiveness. What’s next? Enhanced database observability Observability is more than just a technical requirement—it's a strategic asset that enhances operational efficiency and economic viability. Through MongoDB's observability suite, organizations can optimize and scale system performance and fuel innovation. MongoDB is dedicated to continuously improving this suite to manage large-scale data better and meet demanding performance standards. Our commitment is reflected in our efforts to advance MongoDB's observability features, providing specific insights that deliver actionable intelligence tailored to our customers' needs. Look for the next post in this series, where we'll explore various tools and their integration, illustrated through common use cases. Sign up for MongoDB Atlas , our cloud database service, to see database observability in action. For more information, see Monitor Your Database Deployment .

May 30, 2024