Stealth Startup Spy #279
Ex-Uber & Stripe payments exec builds stealth startup, Former Athelas exec tackles America’s mental health crisis, & Ex-Carta product director launches stealth venture
🚀 We just launched a new newsletter — Company Launch Tracker.
We’re tracking company launches as they happen and surfacing the most interesting new founders and startups (yes, all outside of this stealth activity too). If you want to stay ahead of the curve, this is where you’ll find them first.
Right now we’ve got 5 subscribers: my wife, my mom, and that high school buddy who won’t stop pitching me his app. Be smart like them and get in early 👇
In this issue of the Stealth Startup Spy, here is what we will uncover:
Former Global Head of Payments at Uber and Stripe leader enters stealth
Ex-Carta product director and Capdesk founder (acquired by Carta) launches stealth startup
Former NVIDIA and AWS scientist transforms expert workflows into reinforcement learning environments to help AI master hardware and mechanics
Former Athelas exec tackles America’s mental health crisis
Former Nuro engineering director and Google tech lead embarks on a stealth 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
John Zhao - Co-Founder & CEO at Blossom Health
🔎Featured Founder under stealth mode in StealthStartupSpy#166
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-VP Product & GM at Athelas (Merged with Commure at $6B valuation), Previously VP of Product - New Ventures at EverQuote, where he joined at Series B (100 employees, $100M revenue) and left post-IPO (500 employees, $400M revenue) with peak public-market valuation of $2B
Blossom exists to solve the mental health epidemic in America by enabling access to affordable, timely, clinically-effective psychiatric mental healthcare.
HQ: New York, New York, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 12
Latest Funding: $18.4M Undisclosed Round on 10/1/2025
Key Investor: Headline, Village Global, TA Ventures
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 18 months
Sonya Jin - Co-Founder at Phinity
🔎Featured Founder under stealth mode in StealthStartupSpy#210
FounderDNA: Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-Research Scientist - LLMs at NVIDIA, ex-Applied Scientist - Graph Machine Learning at Amazon Web Services
Phinity transforms expert engineering workflows into reinforcement learning environments, enabling AI to master complex tasks in hardware, mechanics, and design.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 7 months
Frederik Filz-Reiterdank - Co-Founder & CEO at Crewline AI
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Ex-Chief Commercial Officer & CTO at MMY US, ex-Exec/Shareholder at Mask Bros & Novum Group, ex-Digital StratOps at Google
Connect on: LinkedIn
Crewline AI is building supervised autonomy for earthworks construction vehicles like drum rollers, dump trucks & bulldozers.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 2
Key Investors: Entrepreneurs First, Transpose VC
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 3 months
Royce Fullerton - Founder & CTO at Parse Labs
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Ex-Head of Product at Portrait, ex-Technical Co-founder at Nobly POS (acquired by Revolut), ex-Engineer at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Parse is your AI chief of staff. It proactively investigates your business to uncover problems and opportunities - without waiting for you to ask.
HQ: Austin, Texas, United States - London, United Kingdom
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 4
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 9 months
Eric Lay - Co-Founder & CEO at Virio
FounderDNA: Serial Founder
Prior Experience: Ex-Co-Founder at Toronto Tech Fest, ex-Founder at EZ Media Group (generating 2B+ views for clients across YouTube, Instagram & TikTok)
Virio is building the AI marketer for vertical saas.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Media | Team Size: 12
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 5 months
🕵️♂️Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Martin del Rosario - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Masters Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-Director, Global Head of Payments at Uber, ex-Head of Global Payments Performance at Stripe, ex-Director of Global Payments at Remitly
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Greater Seattle Area, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 months
Mikkel Boje - Co-Founder & COO at Stealth
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Masters Degree, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Ex-Director of Product Management at Carta, Co-Founder at Capdesk (acquired by Carta)
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Denmark - United Kingdom
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
Jessica Kropf - Founder & CEO at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Ex-Global Strategy Lead at Amazon Web Services (AWS), ex-Global Product at Meta, ex-Uber Eats Business Development
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
Shihan Tao - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Ex-Director - Head of Product Engineering at Nuro, ex-Tech Lead at Google, ex-Senior Software Engineer at Fitbit, ex-Software Engineer at TripAdvisor
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 month
Jason White - Co-Founder & CEO at Stealth
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Masters Degree, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Ex-AI/ML Engineer at Meta Superintelligence Labs, ex-Tech-Lead, Google Search at Google, ex-Data Scientist at eBay
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 months
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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.