Stealth Startup Spy #258
Simulation engine for digital UX testing goes live with $7.5M seed, MIT PhD w/ 2,300+ citations (Nature, Cell) enters stealth, Stanford scientist trains a brain-state foundation model
If you want your own startup, your portfolio company, or just a rockstar team to get featured in front of our audience of 25K+ investors, submit it here to be considered.
In this issue of the Stealth Startup Spy, here is what we will uncover:
Serial Founder launches simulation platform to let teams test user experience before shipping
Top-cited life sciences researcher (Nature, eLife, Cell) with a PhD from MIT is building a stealth company
Stanford Neuro Scientist launches foundation model for brain state
Former Microsoft, Samsung and Amazon exec builds synthetic AI experts in engineering fields
Ex-Tesla, Chainalysis engineering exec launches stealth startup to simplify robotics development
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
Tom Charman - Co-Founder at Blok
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Co-Founder at Rassa & NAVA, active mentor at Techstars, Founder Institute, and Stanford University, Global Fellow at Sigma Squared Society
Blok is a simulation environment for digital products.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 5
Co-Founder: Olivia Higgs (Co-Founder at Rassa & NAVA, mentor at Founder Institute) - Connect via email
Latest Funding: $5M Seed Round on 7/8/2025 | Total Funding: $7.5M
Key Investors: Kevin Novak (Rackhouse Venture Capital) & Ryan Hoover (Weekend Fund & Founder of Product Hunt)
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 11 months
👀Find out more about what he's working on in this stealth founder spotlight hosted by our friend Adam at The Founder Initiative.
Avery Krieger - Founder & CEO at Constellation
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-Neuroscience Research Scientist at Stanford University, ex-PhD Research Scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine, ex-Behavioral Neuroscience Consultant
Constellation is a NeuroAI startup building the first foundation model of brain state: a powerful model trained on real-time neural, physiological, and behavioral data collected from instrumented spaces.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 12 months
Moe Tanabian - Founder & CEO at IntuigenceAI
🔎Featured Founder under stealth mode 67 weeks ago
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-Chief Product Officer at Cognite, ex-Global VP of Industrial Software Portfolio at Microsoft, ex-Corporate Vice President at Samsung Electronics, and Engineering Leader at Amazon, AWS
IntuigenceAI is building AI based synthetic experts in various engineering disciplines, including Chemical and Mechanical Engineering.
HQ: United States
Industry: Engineering Services | Team Size: 9
Latest Funding: $10M Seed Round on 7/14/2025
Key Investors: Innovation Endeavors, Recursive Ventures, Think + Ventures
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 16 months
Xinwei He - Co-Founder & CEO at TraceRoot
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Founding Engineer at Kumo.AI, ex-ML Engineer at Meta, ex-Research Assistant at Stanford, UIUC alum
TraceRoot (YC S25) is building an agentic system that automatically fix production bugs.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Media | Team Size: 2
Co-Founder: Zecheng Zhang (Founding Engineer at Kumo.AI, ex-SDE at AWS)
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 months
Vineet Edupuganti - Co-Founder & CEO at Cogent
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of Multi-Product Platform at Abnormal Security (joined as ML Eng → PM), ex-ML Researcher at Meta, New Relic, Stanford
Cogent is building an "AI Taskforce" for Vulnerability Management that drives efficiency in enterprise VM programs and accelerates risk reduction with AI agents that supercharge in-house security teams.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Computer and Network Security | Team Size: 18
Co-Founder: Thanos Baskous (Ex-Coinbase, Twitter, TellApart - stealth in SSS#170) - Connect via email , Geng Sng (Ex-Engineering Leader at Abnormal Security) - Connect via email
Latest Funding: $11M Seed Round on 7/14/2025
Key Investors: Greylock, Lockstep
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 10 months
🕵️♂️Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Harry Mellsop - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
Building a platform to make building robots feel more like building software.
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of Engineering, Data Solutions at Chainalysis, ex-Chief Technology Officer at Transpose (acquired), ex-Vision Engineer | Tesla Autopilot at Tesla, ex-Software Engineering at Amazon Web Services
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: New York, New York, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
Usman Anwer - Co-Founder & CEO at Stealth AI Company
Building Agentic AI for Physical R&D.
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Founding PM for multiple AWS products (Bedrock, MLOps, IoT), ex-VP of Software at Astra, ex-Microsoft PM
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Seattle, Washington, United States ·
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 4 months
Dan Shiebler - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of Machine Learning at Abnormal AI, ex-ML Engineering Manager at Twitter, ex-Deep Learning Researcher at Brown University, Oxford ML PhD
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: New York City Metropolitan Area, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
Byron Lee - Founder & CEO at Stealth AI Startup
FounderDNA: Doctorate Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: MIT PhD in Biology, ex-Stanford & Berkeley life science researcher (2300+ citations from 13 papers in top journals such as Nature, eLife, and Cell)
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
Meghan Heintz - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder
Prior Experience: Ex-Staff Software Engineer, Machine Learning and AI at Dune, ex-Staff Data Scientist at Emerson Collective, Rent The Runway, Glossier and BuzzFeed
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
🚨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
Thank you for reading. If you liked it, share it with your friends, colleagues and everyone interested in staying ahead of the hidden developments in tech. Subscribe below and follow us on X / Twitter to never miss a company operating under stealth again.
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.