Stealth Startup Spy #362
Ex-Apple AR & MIT researcher builds a neural interface couture house, CoScreen founder (acq. Datadog) builds something new, & Ex-Meta tech lead builds enterprise AI for insurance agencies
🚀 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 👇
We run a live feed inside Gravity that tracks founders entering stealth and companies quietly exiting it.
What you’re reading here is about 1% of the stealth activity we pick up. The full tracker updates in real time as things change and new activity emerges.
If you want earlier access to everything, book some time with us to stay ahead.
In this issue of the Stealth Startup Spy, here is what we will uncover:
Ex-Meta tech lead builds enterprise AI for insurance agencies and brokerages
Ex-Stripe, Microsoft, and Facebook engineering lead across payments and credit infrastructure builds a new venture
Ex-Apple AR engineer and MIT Media Lab neuro researcher builds a “couture house” for neural interfaces
YC S24-backed Comfy Deploy founder, ex-Microsoft engineer, builds a new generative-media venture
CoScreen co-founder and CEO (acquired by Datadog) builds something new
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
Dnyaneshwari Chandarana - Founder / CEO at SureNode
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Head of Product (Vault Enterprise) at HashiCorp, Senior Director of Product Management at AppViewX, Senior Manager - Product Management at CyberArk, Head of Product at Eos Cyber (Acquired by AppViewX)
Connect on: LinkedIn
Surenode is the control plane for enterprise agent fleets. It turns every agent run into a proven skill, ranks the ones that actually work, and governs what a fleet is allowed to run — so the knowledge an organization earns compounds instead of disappearing.
HQ: Sunnyvale, California, United States
Industry: AI infrastructure, Enterprise AI | Team Size: 2
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 4 Months
Anurag Kamasamudram - CEO at bynd
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Chief Technology Officer at DataBraid, Tech Lead at Meta, Head of Mobile at Hightail, Co-Founder / CTO at Dezapp
bynd builds enterprise-grade AI for insurance agencies, brokerages, and wholesalers, aimed at winning more business and improving retention without adding headcount.
HQ: Seattle, Washington, United States
Industry: InsurTech, Enterprise AI
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 5 Months
Wenyi H. - Founder & CEO at Mercatus AI
FounderDNA: Doctorate Degree, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Research Scientist - Machine Learning/AI at Meta, AI Researcher & Quantitative Researcher at Citadel, Quantitative Researcher/AI Researcher at Jump Trading, Research Intern at Microsoft Research
Connect on: LinkedIn
Mercatus is the 24/7 exchange for LLM inference tokens. It lets anyone with spare capacity list at their own price, lets buyers trade spot or lock in forward contracts up to 12 months out, and settles every trade in real, usable tokens through a central limit order book.
HQ: Bellevue, Washington, United States
Industry: AI Infrastructure, AI Compute Markets | Team Size: 2
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 4 Months
Khalil Ismail - Founder & CEO at Voyage
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: AI Researcher at Harvard University, Neuro Researcher - MIT Media Lab at MIT, Product Management at Microsoft, Augmented Reality Engineering at Apple
Voyage is engineering neural interfaces as objects of desire, positioning itself as the first deep-tech couture house for mind computing.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Neurotechnology, Wearables | Team Size: 3
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 12 Months
Manoj Krishnan - Co-Founder, CTO at MachGen
🔎 Featured Founder under stealth mode in StealthStartupSpy#317
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Principal Engineer - Director at Google, Engineering Leadership at Meta, Engineer at VMware R&D, Staff Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
MachGen delivers lightning-fast inference for the world’s best open image and video models, built to power demanding, low-latency applications that need full-quality results in seconds.
HQ: Santa Clara, California, United States
Industry: AI Inference Infrastructure, Generative Media | Team Size: 16
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 7 Months
🕵️♂️Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Joseph Valente - Co-Founder & CEO at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Director of Product Management at Google, Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, Founder & CEO at Ebla (Acquired)
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 3 Months
Fernando Dal’Sotto - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Engineering Manager at Stripe, Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft, Engineering Manager at Facebook
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Dublin, Ireland
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Nick Kao - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder
Prior Experience: Founder at Comfy Deploy (YC S24), Software Engineer at Microsoft, Founding Engineer at Ad Auris, Software Developer at UBC Launch Pad
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Unite States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Month
Vince Wu - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Top 10 University, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Co-Founder & CTO at CytoTronics (Acquired by Axion Biosystems), Graduate Research Assistant at Harvard University, Graduate Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, Undergraduate Researcher at University of Washington
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 8 Months
Till Pieper - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Former FAANG, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: CEO & Co-Founder at CoScreen (Acquired by Datadog), Director of Product Management - Applied AI & MCP at Datadog, Product Manager - Vertex AI at Google Cloud, General Manager - Conversational AI Platform at SAP
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 7 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.