Stealth Startup Spy #229
Ex-Meta VP and Google director builds in stealth mode, Former Databricks & DeepMind team launches AI security intelligence company, & Ex-TikTok ML engineer and 2x founder embarks on stealth venture
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In this issue of the Stealth Startup Spy, here is what we will uncover:
Ex-Databricks & DeepMind team automates software vulnerability triage and remediation
Ex-Meta VP/Head of Data Engineering, Instagram & Threads leaves to co-found a stealth AI company
Former Notion India Head unveils AI engine that builds, launches, and learns from campaigns
Ex-Revolut & Wise team is developing palm-scan payments to replace passwords and PINs
Ex-TikTok ML engineer and 2x serial founder is back with a new AI venture
And more…
Now let’s shine the spotlight… 💡💡💡
🕵️♂️Founders Coming Out of Stealth
Real-time updates from founders who debut what they’ve been working on under stealth mode
Qasim Mithani - Co-Founder & CEO at Depthfirst
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Ex-Sr. Engineering Leader at Databricks, ex-Sr. Engineering Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Connect on: LinkedIn
Depthfirst is building intelligence to autonomously detect, triage and remediate any software vulnerability.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Computer and Network Security | Team Size: 7
Co-Founders:
Andrea Michi (Ex-Staff Research Engineer at Google DeepMind - featured in SSS#199)
Daniele Perito (Co-Founder and ex-Chief Data Officer at Faire- featured in SSS#223)
Jeeyoung Kim (Ex-Engineering Manager at Plaid & Square)
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 7 months
Ashok Gudibandla - Co-Founder at Nexie
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of Notion India at Notion, ex-Founder, CEO at Automate.io (acquired by Notion)
Connect on: LinkedIn
Nexie is an AI-first system designed to generate campaign ideas, create content, launch campaigns, and learn what works, all in one seamless loop.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Software Development | Team Size: 2
Co-Founder: Pradeep Kumar (Ex-Founder of TotalCloud - Acquired by Qualys Inc)
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 4 months
Maria Marti Garcia - Co-Founder at Five
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of Product - SMB Payments at Revolut, ex-Product - Merchant Acquiring at Wise
Connect on: LinkedIn
Five is building the next generation of frictionless authentication - just scan your palm to pay.
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 5
Co-Founder: Thibaut Genevrier (Ex-General Manager, Acquiring at Revolut)
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 year 7 months
Emma Qian - Co-Founder & CEO at Nova AI
🔎Featured Founder under stealth mode in StealthStartSpy#158
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Ex-Co-Founder of Multi ($10M raised), ex-Research Engineering at DeepMind, ex-Software Engineering at Facebook AI
Connect on: LinkedIn
Nova AI's advanced AI agents transform legacy SAP custom code into Clean Core code optimized for S/4HANA.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 3
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 year 1 month
Conor Twomey - Co-Founder & CEO of AI One
🔎Featured Founder under stealth mode in StealthStartSpy#161
FounderDNA: Masters Degree
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of AI Strategy at KX, ex-Managing Director, North America at First Derivatives
Connect on: LinkedIn
AI One is a technology and services company that helps large enterprises unlock the value of AI—without data lakes, replatforming, or lengthy transformation cycles.
HQ: New York, New York, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 11
Co-Founder: Fergus Keenan (Ex-Chief Strategy Officer at Adaptive)
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 9 months
🕵️♂️Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Mel Foody - Co-Founder at Stealth
Building a new company at the intersection of AI and data.
FounderDNA: Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-VP / Head of Data Engineering Instagram & Threads at Meta, ex-Director, Business Intelligence & Analytics at Google
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
Valentin Chelle - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Ex-Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Tiktok, ex-Founder & CEO at Peeps, ex-Founder & CEO at Shake (acquired)
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Unites States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 months
Eugene Wu - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-System Engineer at Neuralink, ex-Strategist at OpenAI, ex-Manager, Machine Learning Startups Solutions Architecture at Amazon Web Services (AWS), ex-Director of Customer Experience at Gremlin, ex-Technical Lead, Lab Devops Engineer at Netflix
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: San Jose, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 months
Mitul Tiwari - Co-Founder & CTO at Stealth AI Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Doctorate Degree, Former FAANG, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of Natural language AI and Director of Engineering at ServiceNow, ex-CTO and Cofounder of Passage AI (acquired by ServiceNow), ex-Head of People You May Know and Growth Relevance at LinkedIn, ex-Google
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 4 months
Ben Pressley - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Masters Degree
Prior Experience: Ex-Chief Revenue Officer at fabric, ex-EVP - Sales, Operations, & Strategy at Afterpay (acquired by Square for $29B), ex-VP - Sales, Customer Success at Magento Commerce (acquired by Adobe)
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 year 4 months
🚨Here’s the deal🚨This email has gotten too big. Exciting, but with more people following it, the edge diminishes. I’ve thought long and hard about what to do to preserve the value in the signals. I’m not sure about the final direction yet, but in the meantime I’ve been sending an email 48 hours earlier to a select group of paid subscribers. The feedback has been pretty positive so I’m going to open up the list for another 100 spots. To get signals early, Apply here!
Stay Stealthy,
Drake
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Stealth Startup Spy is a data-driven newsletter for investors, journalists and tech enthusiasts interested in uncovering the next big move for key talent, real-time stealth company launches and technology advancements not in plain sight. We leverage the technology built at Gravity to shine a light on the hidden world of stealth startups.