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. ✨
🔮 Talents of the Week
Specter monitors real-time global talent movements to spot investment opportunities before anyone else.
🪄 Predicted: David Singleton (US, 2024): Co-founder & CEO at /dev/agents
Advantage on Latest Funding Round: 89 Days
Description: /dev/agents is develops operating systems for AI agents.
Prev. Experience: David Singleton previously worked at Stripe as Chief Technology Officer for nearly 7 years, leading the engineering team to handle over $1 trillion per year in transactions. Singleton also spent over 11 years at Google, rising to VP Engineering. He founded /dev/agents in October 2024, a startup building a cloud-based operating system for AI agents. Singleton began his career at Symbian as a Senior Technical Consultant and holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge.
Total Funding: $56M / $56M Latest Seed on 11-2024.
Notable Investors: Alexandr Wang, Andrej Karpathy, Jill Chase, Nikesh Arora, Nina Achadjian.
👻 Opportunity: Jamie Cuffe (US, 2024): Founder at Stealth Startup
Prev. Experience: Jamie Cuffe previously worked at Retool as Head of Self-serve & New Products for 4 years, where he helped launch 7 new products and scale to millions of apps. Cuffe also co-founded Cheer, which was acquired by Retool. Before that, he was a Data Scientist at Sequoia Capital. He started a new company in April 2024, focused on a $300B vertical primed for AI transformation. Cuffe holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Princeton University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude.
🎱 Strategic Signals
Specter analyzes the online and social activity of leading investors and industry insiders to predict upcoming funding rounds and acquisitions.
🪄 Predicted: Briefcase (EU, 2024)
Advantage on Latest Funding Round: 68 Days
Description: Breifcase provide an AI-driven platform for bookkeeping and accounting automation.
Total Funding: $3M / $3M Latest Seed on 12-2024.
Notable Investors: Earlybird Venture Capital, Tiny Supercomputer Investment Company, Entrepreneur First, Charlie Songhurst, Bill Earner, Greg Marsh, Dan Westgarth, Mark Ransford, Chris Mairs CBE.
👻 Opportunity: Runloop AI (US, 2024)
Description: Runloop AI provides the infrastructure platform for developers building the future of software engineering.
🍒 Cherry-Picked Companies
Specter tracks the performance of millions of companies and identifies the ones who are likely to increase in valuation.
🪄 Predicted: Zero (US, 2024)
6 Months Growth: Web: 89.5%; Team: 100%; Social: 46.1%
Description: Zero provided an AI-powered GTM platform for high-growth companies.
Total Funding: $2.7M / $2.7M Latest Seed on 12-2024.
Notable Investors: 20VC, 20Growth, 20Product, Discovery Ventures, Illusian Founder Office, James Hawkins, Irena Goldenberg.
👻 Opportunity: Vellum (US, 2023)
6 Months Growth: Web: 24.2%; Team: 76.9%; Social: 15.8%
Description: Vellum is a developer platform for building production-worthy applications on LLMs.
Total Funding: $5.5M / $5M Latest Seed on 07-2023.
Notable Investors: Y Combinator, Divya Bhat, Rebel Fund, TwentyTwo VC, Pioneer Fund, Eastlink Capital, Henry Shi, Arash Ferdowsi, Dharmesh Shah.
That’s all for this edition of Specter Monitor!
Stay tuned for the next updates and feel free to share with your friends.
