Stealth Startup Spy #347
CMU Robotics PhD builds touch-aware robots, Stanford/Harvard co-founder of ORNA enters stealth in biotech, & Ex-Mistral AI GTM lead launches stealth startup
💰 New: Featured Founders Fundraising
We’re launching a new section highlighting founders actively raising capital.
Every week I get flooded with messages from founders we’ve featured (and plenty we haven’t yet) wanting to share what they’re building, how fast they’re growing, what their revenue looks like, and who they’re raising from.
Some of those conversations are too interesting to keep behind closed doors.
With the founders’ permission, we’ll occasionally feature startups that are actively fundraising and give you a peek behind the curtain on what they’re building, where they’re at, and what their raise looks like.
Think of it as a curated founder-to-investor matchmaking section built right into the newsletter.
Back to the good stuff…
In this issue of the Stealth Startup Spy, here is what we will uncover:
CMU PhD and Meta AI tactile sensing researcher is building the next generation of touch-aware robots
Stanford PhD, Harvard MBA, and co-founder of ORNA Therapeutics enters stealth in biotech
Former ThoughtSpot engineering leader is building a unified query engine for AI agents
Ex-DoorDash Director of ML and Convoy data science leader enters stealth
Founding GTM lead at Mistral AI UK launches stealth startup
And more…
Now let’s shine the spotlight… 💡💡💡
💰 Featured Founders Fundraising
Discover startups currently fundraising before they hit everyone’s radar.
Hans Guntren - Co-Founder & CEO at Deliberately.ai
C3 AI alums raising seed round for AI Client Intelligence platform, Deliberately.ai
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Product Leader at C3 AI, Law Technology Committee / Author, American Bar Association, Board of Advisors at Celonis Inc
Co-Founder: Riley Siebel (Engineering Leader at C3 AI, Princeton University, Computer Science, UC Berkeley, Haas, MBA)
Deliberately.ai is an AI Client Intelligence platform for law firms, that autonomously interviews clients, consumes documents, reads inbound emails, structures data, identifies facts, surfaces insights and generates high-quality legal work products.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Software, Legal Tech | Team Size: 7
Advisors: Robert S. Cohen, Randall M. Kessler
Early Investors: Kleiner Perkins, Bessemer Venture Partners, Scribble Ventures
Traction & Highlights: First-to-market and a significant head-start in the AI Client Intelligence, validated product with production customers, and is currently raising a seed round to expand.
🕵️♂️ Founders Coming Out of Stealth
Real-time updates from founders who debut what they’ve been working on under stealth mode
Todd Lieberman - Founder & CTO at Concentrate
🔎 Featured Founder under stealth mode in StealthStartupSpy#304
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Decorated Start-up founder with 4 exits: Voicestar (MCHX), Solve Media (Adiant), Circulate (LiveRamp) & Deduce (Cheq AI) for > $200m
Concentrate is the LLM gateway for fast growing teams that lets you securely access, use, govern and manage AI via one API. There’s a smarter, faster, cheaper model for every request.
HQ: New York, NY United States
Industry: AI Infrastructure | Team Size: 9
Key Team Members: Ari Jacoby | Email (Ex-Cofounder & CEO of Deduce acquired by Cheq.AI, Ex-Cofounder & CEO of Circulate acquired by LiveRamp, Ex-Cofounder & CEO of Solve Media acquired by Adiant, Ex-Cofounder & CEO of Voicestar, acquired by Marchex
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 9 months
Traction Under Stealth: Exited stealth yesterday to launch out of closed beta.
Divya Ranganathan - CEO & Co-Founder at Hotdata
🔎 Featured Founder under stealth mode in StealthStartupSpy#300
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree
Prior Experience: Director of Engineering at ThoughtSpot, Sr. Engineering Manager at Mode Analytics, Engineering Manager at VMware
Hotdata is a unified execution layer for agentic data access, connecting databases, warehouses, data lakes, files, and SaaS applications behind a single low-latency API.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: AI Infrastructure, Data Engineering | Team Size: 3
Key Investors: Array Ventures, BEENEXT
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 6 Months
Victor Sunderland - Co-Founder at Embrasure
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI, Software Engineer at Netflix, Software Development Engineer at Amazon
Connect on: LinkedIn
Embrasure is a natural language interface for enterprise data operations, enabling teams to query their full data stack in plain English while maintaining governance through approval gates and audit logs.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: AI Infrastructure, Data Governance, Enterprise Analytics
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 months
Jonathan K. - Founder & CEO at American Terraforming Corporation
FounderDNA: Technical Founder
Prior Experience: Flight Software Engineer at SpaceX, Vehicle Chassis & Firmware Engineer at Tesla, Engineer at Radiant
Connect on: LinkedIn
American Terraforming Corporation is building next-generation heavy equipment designed for the era of physical AI and energy abundance, targeting deployment on Earth and other rocky planetary bodies.
HQ: El Segundo, California, United States
Industry: Deep Tech, Robotics, Space Tech
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Raunaq Bhirangi - Co-Founder & CEO at Index Robotics
FounderDNA: Doctorate Degree, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Postdoctoral Researcher at NYU, Visiting Researcher at Meta FAIR (leading tactile sensing efforts), PhD & MS in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University
Index Robotics builds adaptive robotic systems designed to automate precise tasks.
HQ: New York, New York, United States
Industry: Robotics, Automation | Team Size: 5
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 6 months
🕵️♂️ Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Namita Bisaria - CEO and Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Doctorate Degree, Masters Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Co-Founder at Orna Therapeutics, PhD Researcher at Stanford University, MBA at Harvard Business School, Head of Research Strategy & Operations at AIRNA, Chief Operating Officer - GanNA Bio at ReNAgade Therapeutics
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Eran Borenstein - Founder & CTO at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Principal Applied Scientist at Amazon Lab126, Co-Founder at PGGuard (Acquired by Rimon), Principal Dev Manager & Scientist at Microsoft, Co-Founder at Personity.ai, PhD & MS at Weizmann Institute of Science
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Tel Aviv District, Israel
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 3 Months
Amin Azad - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
Building the AI infrastructure for information and document management.
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Fulbright Visiting Researcher at MIT, Senior UX Researcher at Facebook, UX Researcher & Human Factors Engineer at Google, Researcher at Stanford Center for Design Research, PhD & MS at University of Toronto
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Misha Jessel Kenyon - Co-Founder & CEO at Stealth
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder
Prior Experience: Founded Mistral AI's go-to-market in the UK, Founding Partner at Revenue Syndicate, Major Account Director at Zscaler, Strategic Account Executive at Salesloft
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Month
Cyrus Safaie - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Director of Engineering & AI/ML at DoorDash, Head of ML, Data Science & Economics at Convoy, Senior Director - Algorithms at Opex Analytics
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Seattle, Washington, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 6 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.