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. ✨
New Feature: Contact Details ✉️
After countless requests from our valued users, we’re thrilled to unveil a high-impact update to our platform—now available not only on our website but also through our convenient Chrome extension. You can access contact details for all founders and professionals in our company database, people database, talent signals, and strategic signals—all in one place.
Specter Team
New Feature: Award Years 🗓️
You can now filter company signals by awards year, making it easier to track shortlists from past years to the present. This update helps you focus on the most relevant awards data for your analysis. The latest 2025 awards CSV is available for download below.
🔮 Talents of the Week
Specter monitors real-time global talent movements to spot investment opportunities before anyone else.
🪄 Predicted: Guy Flechter (EU, 2024): Founder & CEO at Sola Security
Advantage on Latest Funding Round: 229 Days
Description: Sola Security offers customized security solutions for homes and businesses.
Prev. Experience: Guy Flechter is the Founder and CEO of Sola Security, a cybersecurity startup he launched in May 2024 focused on making security "radically accessible" through self-service, simplicity, and affordability—recently emerging from stealth mode in March 2025. Previously, he served as Chief AppSec Officer at Palo Alto Networks (2022–2024) following their acquisition of Cider Security, which he co-founded and led as CEO (2021–2024). Before entrepreneurship, Flechter built his security expertise as CISO & DPO at AppsFlyer (2018–2021) and held security leadership roles at LivePerson (2012–2018), rising from Security Specialist to Information Security Team Lead. His background combines technical security expertise with business acumen, holding a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Economics from Tel Aviv University and an MBA in Finance from Reichman University (IDC Herzliya).
Total Funding: $30M / $30M Latest Seed Round on 03-2025.
Notable Investors: S Capital, Mike Moritz, S32, Glilot Capital Partners, Lockstep (Palo Alto).
👻 Opportunity: Emil Fröberg (EU, 2025): Founder at Stealth Startup
Prev. Experience: Emil Fröberg is currently working on a new AI venture in stealth mode since January 2025. Previously, he was the Co-Founder and CEO of Andon Labs (YC W24) from September 2023 to December 2024, which developed evaluation tools for LLM agents and foundation models. Originally founded as Vectorview, the company was backed by Y Combinator, raised a $2.2M seed round, and served top AI labs as customers. Before entrepreneurship, Fröberg spent 3 years at Klarna (2020-2023), progressing from Market Expansion Analyst to Senior Product Analyst. Earlier, he co-founded Kitchery (2019-2020), a foodtech startup focused on ghost kitchens. His education includes an M.Sc. in Machine Learning and Industrial Engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Fröberg's recent statements indicate his new venture may focus on AI agents that replace employees rather than traditional SaaS, noting that "AI agents tap into headcount budgets" which represents "a 10x bigger pie" than software budgets.
🎱 Strategic Signals
Specter analyzes the online and social activity of leading investors and industry insiders to predict upcoming funding rounds and acquisitions.
🪄 Predicted: Kennan Davison (US, 2025): CEO and Founder at Icon
Advantage on Latest Funding Round: 26 Days
Description: Icon is an AI Admaker platform that enables brands to generate high-quality ads quickly and efficiently.
Prev. Experience: Kennan Davison is the CEO and Founder of Icon, an AI admaker he launched in September 2024 that has rapidly grown to $5M+ ARR within 30 days of its public release. Previously, he founded Skio, a subscription management platform for Shopify brands that reached $10M+ ARR and profitability in just 3 years, with clients including Liquid I.V., Polaroid, and Unilever. Before entrepreneurship, Davison worked as a Software Engineer at Pinterest (2017-2020) after dropping out from Columbia University one year into his studies. Icon, described as "ChatGPT + CapCut for making winning ads," is backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and executives from frontier AI labs including OpenAI, Pika, and Cognition. The company helps brands automate ad creation by analyzing existing video libraries, generating scripts with AdGPT, and assembling high-quality ads in minutes rather than days.
Total Funding: $9.2M / Undisclosed Amount Latest Venture Round on 03-2025.
Notable Investors: Founders Fund, A* Capital, Alexandra Botez, Arnav Kapur, Ben Braverman, David Petersen, Enzo Coglitore, Eric Glyman, Eric Wei, Jayendra Jog, Justin Mares, Karim Atiyeh, Kevin Hartz, Kevin Lee, Kevin Miller - GR0, Matteo Franceschetti, Max Altman, Rahul Sengottuvelu, Roger Beaman, Roman Raisuddin Khan, Ron Shah, Saga Ventures Management, Sara Du, Scott Wu, Tomer Tagrin, Will Kim, Yunyu Lin.
👻 Opportunity: dorian dargan (US, 2024) Co-Founder and CTO at Doji
Description: Doji enables a new way to shop for fashion online - create your AI likeness, try on real products & shop your favorite looks.
Prev. Experience: Dorian Dargan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Doji, a fashion AI platform he launched in July 2024 that creates digital twins for online shopping, allowing users to try on real products virtually. Previously, he worked as a Producer at Meta (2022-2024) building VR games and experiences for Meta Quest. At Apple (2018-2021), Dargan served as Producer for Human Interface Design, working on Apple Vision Pro where he contributed to Persona/Eyesight avatars, visionOS, Spatial FaceTime, and other features for Apple's first spatial computer. Earlier, he was a Producer at Oculus VR/Meta (2017-2018), creating award-winning immersive experiences, and briefly founded a social platform for crypto communities in 2022. Dargan holds dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Economics and Urban Planning from MIT, where he was President of the Black Students Union and MIT Gospel Choir.
🍒 Cherry-Picked Companies
Specter tracks the performance of millions of companies and identifies the ones who are likely to increase in valuation.
🪄 Predicted: Rae Jeong (NA, 2022) Co-Founder and CEO at Maneva
Maneva AIMarch 7, 2025•5min read
6 Months Growth: Web: 20%; Team: 125%; Social: 947%
Description: Maneva offers a compact all-in-one robot platform for lightweight singulation, sorting, and visual inspection.
Total Funding: $10.5M / $10M Latest Seed on 03-2025.
Notable Investors: N49P, Prem Kalevar, Benjamin Ling, Bling Capital, Maria Palma, Freestyle Capital.
👻 Opportunity: Yann Léger (US, 2020) Co-Founder and CEO at Koyeb
6 Months Growth: Web: -8.3%; Team: 27%; Social: 15%
Description: Koyeb is a serverless platform designed to deploy applications globally with high performance and a developer-centric experience.
Total Funding: $8.6M / $7M Latest Seed on 11-2023.
Notable Investors: MongoDB, Philippe Besnard, Hank Vigil, Acequia Capital (AceCap), Alexis Le-Quoc, Samsung NEXT, Fabrice Bernhard, Isai, Dominique Vidal, Marc Jalabert, Mango Capital, Zachary Smith, Amirhossein Malekzadeh, Udi Nachmany, Justin Ziegler, Plug and Play, Serena, Raise Phiture philanthropical fund, Kima Ventures, Sébastien Lucas.
That’s all for this edition of Specter Monitor!
Stay tuned for the next updates and feel free to share with your friends.
