Stealth Startup Spy #8
Ex-Amazon and VMware acquihire debuts K8s startup, Open banking Fintech exits stealth with $30M funding, & Veteran engineers from Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and TikTok raise $6.4M seed for Web3 SaaS
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 track billions of data points to help you identify tomorrow's opportunities that are currently hiding in the shadows. These signals include tracking the inflows and outflows of talent who work at “Stealth Startups”, bios and profile changes to “building something new” and monitoring press releases to shine a light on the hidden world of stealth startups.
In this issue of the Stealth Startup Spy, here is what we will uncover:
Ex-Amazon and VMware acquihire debuts K8s startup
Ex-Head of Partnerships at Revolut is building a Fintech startup in stealth
Veteran engineers from Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and TikTok launch and raise $6.4M seed for Web3/SaaS platform
Open banking Fintech exits stealth with $30M funding
Serial founder with prior exit (Guidewire & HP) launches Cybersecurity platform with $55M funding
Ex-VP at Gympass is building a B2B payments platform in stealth
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
Ali Khayam - Founder & CPO at Chkk
FounderDNA: Former FAANG, Masters Degree, Doctorate Degree
Prior Experience : Former GM, Internet Monitoring & SDN at Amazon, Ex-Director Engineering at VMware, and Ex-Senior Director Engineering at PLUMgrid
Connect on: LinkedIn | Twitter
Chkk assures uptime for k8s using Collective Learning. Avoid incidents, upgrade safely with confidence and automate maintenance.
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Software Development | Team Size: 4
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 13 months
Fuyao Zhao - Co-Founder & CEO at Sentio XYZ
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Prior Exit
Prior Experience : Former Tech Lead / Principal Engineer II at Elastic, former Co-founder at Insight.io (acquired by Elastic), and Ex-Software Engineer at Google
Connect on: LinkedIn
Sentio XYZ is an end-to-end observability platform to help you gain insights, secure assets and troubleshoot transactions for your decentralized applications.
Industry: Software Development | Team Size: 6
Latest Funding: $6.4M Seed on 02/2023
Key Investor: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Hashkey Capital, Canonical Crypto, Essence VC and GSR Ventures
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 14 months
Rajiv Khemani - Co-Founder & CEO at Auradine
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Master’s Degree, Top10 University, Prior Exit
Prior Experience : Ex-CEO and Founder at Innovium (acquired by Marvell Technology), Ex-COO at Cavium, Former Intel, NetApp, Sun Microsystems
Connect on: LinkedIn | Twitter
Auradine is paving the way for web3 to become completely decentralized through building web3 infrastructure solutions for the ecosystem
HQ: Santa Clara, California, United States
Latest Funding: Undisclosed Amount - Series A
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 14 months
Eric Shoykhet - Co-Founder & CEO at Link Financial Technologies
FounderDNA: Serial Founder
Prior Experience : Founder at Atom Finance ($46.5M raised), Ex-Investor at Governors Lane, and Ex-Analyst, Restructuring & Reorganization at The Blackstone Group
Connect on: LinkedIn
Link Financial Technologies offers the first pay-by-bank solution focused exclusively on the United States
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Industry: Financial Services | Team Size: 34
Latest Funding: $20M Series A Round on 01/19/2023; Total Capital Raised: $30M
Key Investors: Valar Ventures, Tiger Global, Quiet, Pareto, Amplo (Spring), Applied Philosophers, Jon Oringer, Shutterstock
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 26 months
Arvind Parthasarathi - Founder & CEO at CYGNVS
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Master’s Degree, Prior Exit
Prior Experience : Founder and Director at CyberCrossroads, Founder and ex-CEO at Cyence (acquired by Guidewire), and Founder and ex-CEO at YarcData (acquired by HP)
Connect on: LinkedIn
CYGNVS a guided cyber crisis response platform™ providing anytime, anywhere, anyplace access
HQ: Los Altos, California, United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 69
Latest Funding: $55M Series A Round on 01/24/2023
Key Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Dowling Capital Partners, Eos Venture Partners, Stone Point Ventures
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 21 months
🕵️♂️Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Deep Randhawa - Co-Founder at Stealth
Prior Experience : Former Software Engineer at Headspace, Reddit, and Hulu
Connect on: LinkedIn
HQ: Los Angeles, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 3 months
Laura Camargo - Co-Founder at Neofin
Prior Experience : Co-founder of Inventa ($80.4M raised), Ex-Vice President of Finance & Strategy at Gympass
Connect on: LinkedIn
Neofin is a B2B payments platform that emerged to bring efficiency and agility to your accounts receivable and billing.
HQ: São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 3 months
Evan Gilman - Co-Founder at Stealth
FounderDNA: Technical Founder
Prior Experience : Former Staff Engineer at VMware, Ex-Engineer at Scytale.io, Former PagerDuty
Connect on: LinkedIn | Twitter
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 6 months
Ethan Steininger - Founder at Mixpeek
FounderDNA: Top10 University
Prior Experience : Ex-Advisory Specialist at MongoDB, Former Product Manager at Capital One, and Ex-Software Engineer at Booz Allen
Connect on: LinkedIn
Mixpeek is an intelligent file store powered by the latest extraction, indexing and searching technology. Build multimodal search into your software with a single API
Industry: Software Development | Team Size: 2
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 3 months
Aaron Beck - Co-Founder at Stealth
Prior Experience : Ex-Head of Payments and Banking Partnerships at Revolut, Former Director at Barclays, and ex-Senior Banking Services Manager at Bank of America
Connect on: LinkedIn
Building in Fintech
HQ: London, England, United Kingdom
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 5 months
Stay Stealthy,
Drake
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