Specter Monitor is a data-driven newsletter for investors interested in learning about the latest market trends, signals, and opportunities. Our audience includes some of the most legendary VC investors in the world. We’ll work hard to bring you actionable insights into what’s happening in today’s markets while celebrating data-driven wins and predictions. ✨
Seeing, 2018 by KAWS
New in Specter: Investors, Table View, and More! ⚡️
We're excited to bring you the latest updates to Specter, packed with new features and improvements designed to streamline your data-driven investment workflows. Here's a quick look at what's new:
- Investor Database 💲
- Weekly Funding Signals & New Growth Signals 📈
- Strategic Signals Integration 📡
- All-New Table Design 📊
- New HQ Locations and Filtering 🌍
- Dynamic Funding Date Filters 📅
Read more about it here, or watch the loom from our co-founder Marco below 👇
🔮 Talents of the Week
Specter tracks real-time top talents movements across the world to detect actionable investment opportunities before anyone else.
🪄 Predicted:
Burkay Gur (US, 2021): Founder @ Fal.ai.
Featured by Specter on: 2021 - Week 22.
Advantage on Latest Funding Round: 1209 Days.
Description: Fal is a Python cloud that runs dbt projects for machine learning models.
Prev. Experience: Machine Learning Platform @ Coinbase, Senior Software Engineer @ Oracle.
Total Funding: $23M / $14M Latest Series A on 09-2024.
Notable Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Aravind Srinivas, Balaji Srinivasan, First Round Capital, Guillermo Rauch, Julien Chaumond, Kindred Ventures.
👻 Opportunity:
Pankaj Gupta (US, 2024): Founder @ Stealth Startup.
Featured by Specter on: 2024 - Week 30.
Prev. Experience: Advisor @ Coinbase, Vice President Of Engineering @ Coinbase, Senior Director Of Engineering @ Google, Founder and CEO @ Halli Labs / Agara Labs (Acquired), Chief Product and Technology Officer @ Stayzilla, Co-founder and Managing Member @ Specialized Types, (Informal) EIR @ Kleiner Perkins, Sr. Staff ML Engineer @ Twitter, Cofounder and CEO @ Phulki Inc. (Acquired), Principal Architect and MTS @ Netlogic Microsystems Inc., Principal Architect and MTS @ Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer @ Sahasra Networks Inc. (Acquired), Research Assistant / PhD student @ Stanford University.
Total Funding: N/A.
Notable Investors: N/A.
🎱 Strategic Signals
Inspired by Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game - Strategic Intelligence is a stealth engine that tracks online and social behaviour of corporate insiders and leading investors.
🪄 Predicted:
Mercor (US, 2023) - Featured by Specter on: 2024 - Week 34.
Advantage on Latest Funding Round: 85 Days.
Description: Mercor is an AI-based hiring platform designed to improve the recruitment process for job seekers and companies.
Total Funding: $33.6M / $30M Latest Series A on 09-2024.
Notable Investors: Adam D’Angelo, Benchmark, Chris Re, General Catalyst, Jack Dorsey, Larry Summers, Peter Thiel.
👻 Opportunity:
Theseus (US, 2024) - Featured by Specter on: 2024 - Week 37.
Description: Theseus provides a self-contained Visual Navigation System (VNS) that retrofits onto drones to offer GPS-like functionality using cameras and an accelerometer/gyroscope.
Total Funding: $500K / $500K Latest Pre-Seed on 06-2024.
Notable Investors: Y Combinator.
Signal: Increased VC Interest in 09-2024.
🍒 Cherry-Picked Companies
Specter tracks the alternative data performance of millions of companies and, on a monthly basis, flags the ones who are likely to increase in valuation.
🪄 Predicted:
Akur8 (US, 2018) - Specter Rank: 69,904 📈
Description: Akur8 is a developer of an AI-driven insurance pricing platform designed to provide pricing automation and optimization for insurance carriers.
Total Funding: $186.9M / $120M Latest Series C on 09-2024.
Notable Investors: BlackFin Capital Partners, Guidewire Software, FinTLV Ventures, One Peak, Partners Group, Hedosophia, MTech Capital.
6 Months Growth: Web: -49.5%; Team: 13.68%; Social: 5.0%.
👻 Opportunity:
MK1 (US, 2022) - Specter Rank: 1,506,993 📈
Description: MK1 is developing an AI computing engine designed to reduce inference costs.
Total Funding: Undisclosed / Undisclosed Latest Venture Round on 11-2023.
Notable Investors: Ascent Equity Partners, Interface Capital, Rsquared, Susa Ventures.
6 Months Growth: Web: -58.75%; Team: 12%; Social: 15.5%.
