Specter Monitor #199 🦉

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. ✨

💸 Revenue Signals of the Week

Specter tracks private-company revenue and profitability as it’s reported across social posts, news, podcasts, and public filings.

VXT hit $6M ARR

VXT reports $6M in ARR, with thousands of paying customers; it surpasses an earlier $1M threshold.

LegalOn Technologies hit $65M ARR

LegalOn reached ¥10 billion in ARR, becoming the fastest AI company founded in Japan to reach ARR milestone.

Kondo hit $500K ARR

Kondo reported surpassing $500K in ARR with ~100 weekly signups and ~1,500 customers.

Rocapine hit $5M ARR

Rocapine announced $5M in ARR achieved in under nine months.

🔮 Stealth Opportunities of the Week

Specter monitors real-time global talent movements to spot investment opportunities before anyone else.

Seiji Yamamoto

Seiji Yamamoto, based in Menlo Park, California, is a deep learning expert with 16 years of experience. Strong background in engineering and AI, with roles at Salesforce, Meta, and Palantir Technologies. Work has spanned developing machine learning use cases, maintaining deep learning frameworks for computer vision, and contributing to core AI teams. Holds a PhD in Physics from Rice University, an MS in Financial Engineering from Columbia University, and a BS in Physics and Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Yamamoto's recent role at Meta, focused on inference efficient architectures and large-scale pre-training, underscores his expertise in cutting-edge AI technologies. Currently in stealth 👻

Vasco Pedro

Vasco Pedro, based in Lisbon, Portugal, serial entrepreneur with a 26-year career. Founded ventures like Bueda, Dezine.com, and Unbabel. Currently, he is leading a stealth AI startup and invested in Replai. Strong expertise in machine learning, Python, and computer science with substantial endorsements. Holds a PhD in Language Technologies from Carnegie Mellon University. Developed semantic advertising at Bueda and lead technical teams at Dezine.com. At Unbabel, he played a big role in eliminating language barriers, combining AI with human editing. Currently in stealth 👻

Martin Damhus

Martin Damhus, based in Copenhagen, is a serial entrepreneur with 21 years of experience. Co-founded Accurate IT and Capdesk, with the latter being acquired by Carta. Currently, is Chief Product Officer at a stealth company. Strong endorsements in .NET, business intelligence, and software design. Holds a MSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Copenhagen. Significant roles at Capdesk, from CIO & Founder to COO & Founder post-acquisition by Carta. Martin's expertise in software design, product management, and business intelligence has been instrumental in his ventures' success, reflecting his ability to drive innovation and growth in the tech sector. Currently in stealth 👻

Radhika Venkatraman

Radhika Venkatraman, based in New York City, with extensive 28-year career. Co-founder of Stealth AI Physical and holds influential roles across several organizations, including Live Earth, Quantum Metric, Cerberus Capital Management, and Fiddler AI. Notable expertise in cloud computing, IT strategy, and cross-functional team leadership. Holds a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and MS degrees in Computer Aided Engg and Computer Science from North Carolina State University. Held key roles at Verizon, Credit Suisse, and as a board director for various companies. Currently in stealth 👻

Scott Salkin

Scott Salkin, from Phoenix, Arizona, an entrepreneur with 24 years of experience. Founded ChannelScaler and IDS Technology Marketing. Currently co-founding a stealth startup. Expertise span across start-ups, strategy, marketing, and SaaS, with a strong focus on B2B technology. Holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from San Diego State University, with a specialization in Information & Decision Systems. Held leadership roles at Cisco, Allbound, Inc., and Gainsight, where he contributed to significant revenue growth and strategic partnerships. Scott's journey reflects a passion for building companies, driving go-to-market strategies, and fostering partnerships that accelerate growth and innovation in the tech landscape. Currently in stealth 👻

🎱 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.

Junction Labs (🔥 featured 1x in 90 days)

Junction Labs offers a sidecar-less L7 HTTP and gRPC service mesh designed to accelerate feature delivery and enable safe testing in production. Founded by Ian Nowland and Ben Linsay, Their solution allows for progressive deployments, dynamic traffic shaping, and A/B testing without infrastructure changes, enabling canary and blue/green releases. Developers can test new services and features in production using traffic mirroring and isolated sandboxes with production data, minimizing risk. It is delivered as a managed SaaS with minimal overhead (less than 1% overhead compared to 10-25% for sidecars).

Hyperspell (🔥 featured 3x in 90 days)

Hyperspell is an AI-enabled apps builder by providing a data platform that simplifies the development process. Founded by Manu Ebert and Conor Brennan-Burke. Allows users to connect to dozens of services and using Hyperspell’s end-to-end data pipeline, structured data can be obtained with a single API call. Hyperspell has garnered support from notable investors including Afore Capital, Alpha Square Group, CRV, Don Ho, Julian Weisser, Lisa Yu, Nick Sullivan, Siqi Chen, a16z Scout Fund, and Y Combinator with a seed-stage funding amount of $1.0M.

Foxglove (🔥 featured 1x in 90 days)

Foxglove is dedicated to advancing robotics development through its innovative software that provides visualization, debugging, and management of multimodal data in a single platform. Founded by Roman Shtylman and Adrian Macneil. Products like Foxglove SDK and Foxglove Agent, the company simplifies the integration of robotics stacks and the importing of recordings, respectively. The company's efforts are supported by investors such as Amplify Partners, Eclipse Ventures, and Kyle Vogt, who recognize the potential of Foxglove's technology to transform the robotics industry. The company has raised $15M in its latest funding round, contributing to a total funding of $18.7M.

Vals.ai (🔥 featured 4x in 90 days)

Vals.ai is pioneering the evaluation of large language models (LLMs) with industry-specific benchmarks. Vals is an early-stage company that has recently secured $5M in funding from Tiger Global Management. Their platform is designed for enterprises that utilize AI models in various sectors such as finance, legal, and software engineering. By creating benchmarks that reflect the performance of LLMs in real-world applications, Vals.ai provides valuable insights that can guide the development and deployment of these models. The company has attracted investment from Pear VC, demonstrating confidence in its approach to enhancing the understanding and application of AI technologies.

Structify (🔥 featured 3x in 90 days)

Structify is transforming the way businesses handle data with its platform that enables powerful data automations without code. Founded by Ronak Gandhi and Alex Reichenbach. By scanning any data source on the internet, Structify creates custom datasets that can be used to streamline data processes across various industries, including finance, construction, and corporate technology. The company's innovative approach to data management has garnered support from investors such as 8VC, Bain Capital Ventures, Hawk Hill Ventures, Integral Venture Partners, and Prototype Capital. With its ability to turn messy data into clean datasets, Structify is poised to make a significant impact on how companies leverage data for insights and decision-making. The company has raised $4.1M in seed funding.

🍒 Company Opportunities of the Week

Specter tracks the performance of millions of companies and identifies the ones who are likely to increase in valuation.

Arini (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 154)

Arini based in San Francisco is an AI receptionist for dental practices, specializing in answering phone calls and scheduling appointments with its Arini AI Receptionist product aimed at dental practices. Founded by Rami Rustom (ex-Threads, Mosaic Building Group, Inc.) and Abdul Jamjoom (ex-Threads, Adobe), the company has grown to 11 employees. Arini has raised $500,000 in funding, with Y Combinator as an investor. Despite no recent news, the company has seen significant web traffic growth of 78.55%, with 17,639 visits and 1,442 LinkedIn followers, positioning it as a Specter Global Rank 154 innovator in dental practice management.

Impossible Cloud (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 208)

Impossible Cloud based in Hamburg offers decentralized, enterprise-grade cloud storage solutions, including Impossible Cloud Storage and Surveillance Cloud, targeting European businesses in need of secure, compliant storage. Founded by Christian Kaul (ex-Stillfront Group, Goodgame Studios) and Dr. Kai Wawrzinek (ex-Stillfront Group, University of Applied Sciences of Hof, Germany), the 72-employee company has secured $18M in funding from investors like 1kx and HV Capital. Despite no latest news, Impossible Cloud has achieved a web visit growth of 13.65%, reaching 35,419 visits and accumulating 5,171 LinkedIn followers, showcasing its Specter Global Rank 208 status in the cloud storage industry.

Espresso AI (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 245)

Espresso AI based in New York City leverages machine learning to optimize Snowflake data warehouses for companies using Snowflake, aiming to reduce costs. The founding team includes Juri Ganitkevitch (ex-Apple, Google), Ben Lerner (ex-Google, Uber), and Alex Kouzemtchenko (ex-Google, White Ops), growing the team to 18 employees. With $11,000,000 in funding but investors not disclosed, Espresso AI has seen a web visit growth of 38.13%, reaching 10,191 visits and 1,123 LinkedIn followers, marking its Specter Global Rank 245.

Starstuff (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 250)

Starstuff based in Helsinki is pioneering in the social games platform space, allowing users to generate interactive 3D scenes from pictures or text prompts. The company, founded by Ari Nykänen (ex-Speechly, Next Games), Hanna Toivonen (ex-Rovio Entertainment Corporation, Lightneer), and Jaakko Jumisko (ex-Self-employed, Next Games, A Netflix Game Studio), has a team of 10 employees. Despite not disclosing its latest funding round, Starstuff has raised $1,285,325 and experienced a significant web visit growth of 306.49%, with 15,792 visits and 385 LinkedIn followers, achieving a Specter Global Rank 250.

Alpine Eagle (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 14)

Alpine Eagle based in Munich is revolutionizing defense against low-cost, autonomous drones with its Sentinel Airborne Counter-UAS System, targeting defense, security organizations, and critical infrastructure operators. Founded by Jan Hendrik Boelens (ex-Quantum-Systems, Clean Aviation), the company has expanded to 24 employees and raised $10,885,414 from investors like IQ Capital and General Catalyst. Alpine Eagle's web visits have surged by 59.17%, totaling 8,382 visits, alongside a robust LinkedIn following of 7,850, securing its Specter Global Rank 155 in the machine learning and aeronautical engineering domain.

That’s all for this edition of Specter Monitor!

Stay tuned for the next updates and feel free to share with your friends.