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. ✨
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💸 Revenue Signals of the Week
Specter tracks private-company revenue and profitability as it’s reported across social posts, news, podcasts, and public filings.
BetterPic hit $3m ARR
BetterPic reached $3M in annual recurring revenue within 18 months while remaining bootstrapped and profitable.
Langdock hit $8m ARR
Langdock scaled from zero to million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in less than two years.
Manus AI hit $90m ARR
Manus AI reached an annual revenue run rate of USD 90 million, as revealed at a Singapore event in August 2025.
Garuda Aerospace hit $141.6m ARR
Garuda Aerospace reported revenue from operations of Rs 118 Crore and a profit of Rs 17.5 Crore for FY25, reflecting a year-over-year increase and continued profitability.
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🔮 Stealth Opportunities of the Week
Specter monitors real-time global talent movements to spot investment opportunities before anyone else.
Ben Silbermann
San-Francisco–based product builder and Pinterest co-founder with Evan Sharp & Paul Sciarra (scaled to global consumer platform); executive transition to Chairman in 2022. Led Pinterest as CEO until June 2022, then transitioned to Executive Chairman as Bill Ready became CEO. He also helped launch the non-profit How We Feel app and is building a new product at the intersection of audio storytelling and AI with Josh Inkenbrandt (no public product name yet). Currently in stealth 👻
Chris Donnelly
London-based founder; co-founded Lottie with Will Donnelly in 2021 to help families find care homes and later-living options. Lottie raised a $21m series a led by Accel with General Catalyst participating (Oct 2023). Previously, Chris founded VERB Brands, which was acquired by Croud in Dec 2021. Lottie ranked #1 on LinkedIn Top Startups (UK) 2024. Spend some time as Fractional Growth at Lovable. Since July has been in building a venture. Currently in stealth 👻
George Urdea
Bay-Area-based entrepreneur; co-founded Nobly POS in 2013 with Sebastiaan Bruinsma and Royce Fullerton. Revolut acquired Nobly POS on Nov 25, 2021 to expand hospitality SME services (with subsequent product integration into Revolut’s payments stack); Urdea was co-founder & CEO at the time. He has publicly marked the journey from founding to acquisition and integration. Now since July 2025 he is exploring new ideas. Currently in stealth 👻
Kevin Nicholas Chandra
Bay-Area founder; co-founded Typedream (with Michelle Marcelline, Albert Putra Purnama, Anthony Harris Christian, Putri Karunia)—an AI/no-code website builder acquired by beehiiv Jun 2024. Before that, co-founded Cotter (YC W20), which was also acquired by Stytch in Nov 2021. Currently building a Stealth AI Startup. Currently in stealth 👻
Marcel Lotufo
São-Paulo/MIT-based operator-founder. Co-Founder & CEO of Santa Dose (2009–2010); the brand was later sold to Brown-Forman (owner of Jack Daniel’s) in 2014. After founded and led Kenoby (ATS) in 2015 funded by Astella (2020) and later sold it to Gupy in Feb 2022. Kenoby’s enterprise clients included Hotmart, Loggi, McDonald’s, Leroy Merlin, Kroton, and Renault-Mitsubishi-Nissan. Also listed as a Venture LP at Stage 2 Capital. In 2024–25 he completed the MIT Sloan Fellows MBA (SFMBA) one-year program and is currently building in stealth. Currently in stealth 👻
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🎱 Investor Signals of the Week
Specter analyzes the online and social activity of leading investors and industry insiders to predict upcoming funding rounds and acquisitions.
Monk (🔥 featured 3x in 90 days)
Turns contracts into cash with an AI-native accounts-receivable platform; founded 2024 and based in New York City (“Built in New York” footer). Co-founded by George Kurdin (ex-D.E. Shaw) and Joe Zhou (ex-Snap, Intuit QuickBooks, Google). Monk automates contract-to-cash and invoice-to-cash, including AP-portal submissions (e.g., Coupa, Ariba) and edge-case handling; a customer case study reports +122% cash-on-hand in month one and a 5× reduction in aging A/R. As a SaaS platform pricing scales with business volume and at the moment running many pilots.
Instill AI (🔥 featured 5x in 90 days)
Builds AI infrastructure for unstructured-data workflows; founded 2020 and operating from London. Automating contracts, invoices and reports into proactive AI teammates, while the open-source lineage shows Instill Core / VDP for data/model/pipeline orchestration (2.3k★ repo). Founding team, Ping-Lin Chang (CEO) and Xiaofei Du (COO). Funding: $3.6m seed (Feb 2023) led by RTP Global, with participation from Lunar Ventures, Hive Ventures, Charles Songhurst, Demetrios Kellari and Mehdi Ghissassi (total funding: $5.2m).
Open-sourced, modular orchestration for unstructured-data AI pipelines (VDP / Instill Core) with developer-centric APIs.
Opennote (🔥 featured 6x in 90 days)
“The AI tutor that lives in your notes,” founded 2025 and based in San Francisco. Founders: Abhigyan (Abhi) Arya, Rishi Srihari, Vedant Vyas. Funding: $850k USD (closed April 2025) led by Afore Capital with Sancus Ventures, Script Capital, Untitled Ventures and angels. Opennote is in YC S25 (with standard $125k + $375k). They offer a freemium SaaS — Free, $15/mo Explorer, $25/mo Scholar; the USP is “Feynman,” proactive feedback embedded directly in your notes, plus visual learning/collaboration.
Dagster Labs (🔥 featured 3x in 90 days)
The company behind Dagster, an open-source data orchestrator, and Dagster Cloud; founded 2018 and based in SF. Founder Nick Schrock (co-created GraphQL at Facebook) serves as CTO; Pete Hunt (early React team; ex-Twitter/Smyte) is CEO. Rebranded from Elementl to Dagster Labs in Aug 2023. Funding: $33m series b in May 2023 led by Georgian with participation from Sequoia, Index, Amplify, Slow, 8VC, Human Capital (Total funding: $49.2M). Subscription-based for Dagster Cloud from Solo $120/mo, Starter $1,200/mo, Enterprise/Pro. Asset-based orchestration focused on developer experience, lineage/observability, and software-defined assets.
Nozomio (🔥 featured 9x in 90 days)
A product lab building “engineers for the AI era,” starting with Nia, a context layer that performs agentic research and indexes external code/docs via MCP / API. Founder Arlan Rakhmetzhanov has publicly shared a move to the Bay Area to build the company and product. Funding: reports indicate an $850k pre-seed led by LocalGlobe / Phoenix Court Group with other angels; the YC/No Label/Andrena. Total Funding: $1.34m.
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🍒 Company Opportunities of the Week
Specter tracks the performance of millions of companies and identifies the ones who are likely to increase in valuation.
Grey (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 24)
Offers virtual USD/GBP/EUR accounts and instant FX aimed at remote workers and cross-border earners; recent posts spotlight USDC funding into USD accounts and Kenya-led East Africa expansion via Cellulant. Co-founders Idorenyin “Idee” Obong (CEO) and Joseph Femi Aghedo (COO) are software-engineer founders (YC W22) who previously built fintech products and scaled Grey from Nigeria into new corridors. Raised $2m seed to fuel expansion and continues to push multi-currency accounts and payout rails. Strong Headcount Momentum/Scale-up; HQ listed as Middletown, Delaware (US).
Orus (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 31)
The Paris insurtech for independents/SMBs; On June 2025, raised a €25m series b (led by Singular, with Notion and Redstone) to accelerate a pan-EU rollout (starting with Spain) and launch a broker platform. Founders Côme Dartiguenave (CEO) (Sciences Po), Tom Le Bras (COO) (ex-growth-equity at Partech), and Samuel Rossille (CTO) (École Polytechnique) position Orus to underwrite SMB-specific cover (GL, BOP, workers’ comp, health; decennial liability in pipeline/coverage) using a data-rich platform. Early Stage with HQ Paris and strong recent activity.
Pulley (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 32)
The founder-first equity & cap-table platform “trusted by 8,000+ companies,” with features spanning 409A/ASC-718, scenario modeling, and fast migrations via Instamigrator. Founder Yin Wu is a serial entrepreneur whose prior startup Double Labs/Echo was acquired by Microsoft; also founded DIRT. Pulley recognized on lists like Forbes Fintech 50 (2024). Early Stage with US HQ (Oakland, CA). Total Funding $50m.
Take Take Take (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 35)
Chess-viewing app bringing live tracking, player notifications and bite-size commentary to make tournaments easy to follow on iOS and Android. Founded April 2023 by World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, with Mats André Kristiansen as CEO & co-founder, the team has shipped public mobile apps and regular content drops. Raised a $3m pre-seed (Jun 2024) led by SNÖ Ventures and Coatue with Breakthrough Initiatives and Thiel Capital. Total funding: $9M raised from investors like Jim Breyer and Yuri Milner. Recent coverage and interviews (incl. Kristiansen) underline the push to make chess a true spectator sport and expand creator-led broadcasts. Strong headcount momentum; HQ Oslo-based team with global hiring.
Interlune (🌟 Specter - Global Rank 654)
Commercializing helium-3 (He-3) and other space resources; on May 2025 it announced its first commercial He-3 customer (Maybell Quantum, 2029–2035 deliveries) and a U.S. DOE Isotope Program purchase (3 liters by 2029)—landmark steps toward non-terrestrial resource sales. Founded by Rob Meyerson (ex-President, Blue Origin) and Gary Lai (ex-Chief Architect, Blue Origin) with Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt (Executive Chairman), the leadership now includes COO Indra Hornsby and Head of Product James Antifaev. Raised a $15.5 seed (Feb 2024) (led by Seven Seven Six) and later received NASA TechFlights funding ($348k, Jul 2024) to test lunar-soil processing in reduced gravity. Last funding type: Grant, Total Funding: $18m; HQ Estes Park, Colorado.
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That’s all for this edition of Specter Monitor!
Stay tuned for the next updates and feel free to share with your friends.
