Specter Monitor #200 🪨

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.

Enty hit €2M ARR

Enty disclosed €2M ARR at its five-year mark in 2025.

NodeOps hit $4.4M ARR

NodeOps reported $4,444,148 in total revenue via on-chain KPIs.

Tiro hit $840K ARR

Tiro reached ₩100M (~$70K) in MRR within one year of launch, with ~10% of revenue from global markets.

io.net hit $20M ARR

io.net announced it just hit $20M in on-chain revenue, a company-reported cumulative milestone indicating traction for its decentralized GPU compute network.

🔮 Stealth Opportunities of the Week

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

Nik Jola

Nik Jola, based in Washington, D.C., is a seasoned professional with 14 years of experience. Jola has been instrumental in founding CrewHire, Momentus, and gC. Currently, he holds a variety of roles including a Board Partner & Advisor at Momentus, while also investing in numerous companies across different sectors such as Audicus, Valo, xAI, and more. Holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication and Media Studies from Nelson Mandela University. Jola's career trajectory, from advisory roles to founding companies and making strategic investments, illustrates a deep engagement with the startup ecosystem and a keen eye for promising ventures. Now Co-Founder & CEO at a Stealth AI Startup. Currently in stealth 👻

Carmel Domshlak

Carmel from Haifa, Israel, brings an impressive 23 years of experience to the table, strong academic background underscored by his role as a Professor at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Deep expertise in Algorithms, Machine Learning, Computer Science, and Artificial Intelligence, with notable endorsements in these areas. Repeat founder, as prior co-Founder, CTO & Head of Product Strategy at Coronet. Holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in CompSci from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Now once again co-founding a Stealth Startup. Currently in stealth 👻

Mohammad (Mo) Rafiee

Mohammad (Mo) Rafiee, located in SF, has a rich 13-year career background, marked by his involvement with Cliick and Visual One (YC W20). Well versed in Machine Learning, Java, R, and Matlab, with a strong emphasis on Natural Language Processing and Statistics. Holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning from the University of California, Berkeley, and participation in Y Combinator (W20). Significant positions at major tech companies like Meta and LinkedIn, showcasing his ability to navigate and contribute to leading-edge technology environments. Current role as Founder of a Stealth Startup. Currently in stealth 👻

Tolu A.

Tolu A., SF-based, 14 years of experience in transforming organizations and scaling high-impact teams. Since September ex-Director of the Program Management Office @ Airbnb. Tolu has a history of leading high-stake projects at companies like Shell, Tesla and Lyft. Go-to guy for product development and engineering leadership. Holds a Master's Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Rice University, where he also completed his Bachelor’s Degree, double majoring in Managerial Studies & Civil and Environmental Engineering. Strong commitment to innovation, sustainability, and strategic growth in complex and regulated environments. Now founder of a Stealth AI Startup Currently in stealth 👻

Carlos Chiu

Carlos Chiu, NYC-based, with 20 years of experience. Repeat founder. Founded Bigfoot Labs, developing custom generative AI solutions for clients in finance, education, healthcare and energy sectors. Holds a BComm in Finance from UBC Sauder School of Business. Lead projects in companies like Société Générale, Citi, and Portfolio Manager at  UBC Portfolio Management Foundation. Now once again venturing into startups co-founder of a Stealth Startup. 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.

Liquid AI (🔥 featured 6x in 90 days)

Liquid AI is a developer of AI applications that help improve human experience. Founded by Ramin Hasani and Daniela Rus, It focuses on researching and developing tools that use artificial intelligence to improve creative workflows and help clients manage their workflow efficiently. The company has attracted significant investment, securing a total funding amount of $293.2M. Notable investors include AMD Ventures, OSS Capital L.P., and The Pags Group, with AMD Ventures leading the Series A funding round. Liquid AI's innovative approach to AI development, particularly in optimizing general-purpose AI models for enterprises and edge devices, has positioned it as a leader in the AI industry. The company's flagship product, LFM-7B, is an efficient language model that sets new standards for its size category, demonstrating Liquid AI's commitment to advancing AI technology.

Sonatic (🔥 featured 2x in 90 days)

Sonatic is pioneering a new era of computing with its innovative interface where AI agents work while users live. Founded by Kinjal Nandy and Sahil Dhull, The company is dedicated to transforming the way we interact with software by learning users' workflows to create a more personal and adaptive computing experience. This approach aims to eliminate the need for constantly switching between apps and managing numerous automations. Sonatic's technology is designed to understand users' needs and proactively suggest action items, making software more intuitive and efficient. Although the company is in its early stages and has not disclosed its funding details, it has already made a significant impact by redefining our relationship with computers and setting a new standard for personal and adaptive software.

Butter (🔥 featured 7x in 90 days)

Butter, also known as Pig, is revolutionizing the way AI operates computers with its API that launches and automates Windows apps. Founded by Erik Dunteman, The company has raised $0.5M in funding, with Y Combinator being a notable investor. Butter's technology is designed for both developers and companies looking to automate Windows applications, offering a solution that balances speed and efficiency without compromising innovation. The company's growth and development have been supported by Y Combinator, showcasing its potential to transform software automation and enhance productivity for its users.

Yampa (🔥 featured 3x in 90 days)

Yampa specializes in designing and deploying tailor-made autonomous AI agents for customer support, offering solutions that significantly improve efficiency and customer satisfaction. Founded by Patrice Mazoyer and Baptiste Saintot, The company has secured $3.1M in funding, with Partech, Arthur Waller, and Guillaume Desloges as key investors. Yampa's flagship product, Y.core, is an AI orchestration platform that powers autonomous customer service agents, capable of resolving a significant portion of technical hotline tickets autonomously and improving productivity in multilingual email management. Yampa's innovative approach to customer service automation has made it a notable player in the AI industry, particularly for large enterprises in retail, e-commerce, finance, and utilities sectors.

Codeflash (🔥 featured 2x in 90 days)

Founded by Afik Cohen and Saurabh Misra, Codeflash is at the forefront of optimizing Python code performance, offering an AI-powered tool that automatically analyzes, rewrites, and validates code for peak performance. Although the company has not disclosed its funding details, it has already made significant strides in the software industry by eliminating the tradeoff between quick feature deployment and efficient code. Codeflash's technology ensures that every application built is fast and reliable, setting a new standard for software development and performance optimization. The company's focus on continuous optimization and its ability to provide reliable, production-ready improvements have positioned Codeflash as a key innovator in software engineering.

🍒 Company Opportunities of the Week

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

WarpBuild (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 327)

WarpBuild, HQ in SF offers GitHub Actions runners and Docker builders that are 10x faster and 90% cheaper, targeting software development teams and enterprises with their CI Runners and Docker Builders products. Founded by Ahmed Shoukry (ex-Contrack International, Inc., Contrack International, inc), the team has grown to 44 employees. WarpBuild raised $1.5M in funding from investors like Quiet Capital (David Greenbaum, Daniel Gruneberg, Selden Frisbee). WarpBuild's traction includes 82,071 web visits with a 288.94% growth and 3,185 LinkedIn followers, ranking #327 globally.

Star Catcher (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 506)

Star Catcher in Jacksonville - Florida, is pioneering the first energy grid for space to revolutionize satellite power delivery through its Star Catcher Network product, aimed at spacecraft operators and satellite companies. Founded by Andrew Rush (ex-Copernicus Space Corporation, Redwire Space), Michael Snyder (ex-HAFTAL LLC, Redwire Space), and Bryan Lyandvert (ex-MetaProp, Amazon), has 29 employees and has raised $12.25M. Investors include B Capital (Gabe Greenbaum, Howard Morgan, Karen Page), Initialized Capital (Greg Lazarus, Garry Tan, Brett Gibson), and Rogue VC (Skye Belote, Alice Lloyd). 3,853 web visits (-12.35% growth) and 6,925 LinkedIn followers, Star Catcher ranks #506 globally.

Yondu (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 769)

Yondu SF-based leverages AI and robotics to automate retail and warehouse operations, aiming at retailers and warehouse operators. Founded by Tahmid J. (CTO | MIT | ex-Squarepoint Capital) and Michael Chen (CEO | MIT | YC W24) with 12 employees and a hiring velocity of 33.33%, Yondu has secured $500k in funding, though investors Y Combinator and SBXi. Traction is evident with 10,379 web visits, showing a 388.19% growth, and 1,223 LinkedIn followers. Ranks #769 globally.

watchTowr (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 835)

watchTowr, HQ in Singapore, is a cybersecurity company providing the watchTowr Platform for external attack surface management to enterprise organizations. Founded by Benjamin Harris (ex-CREST, F-Secure Corporation), the company has grown to 55 employees. It raised $29.25M from Peak XV Partners (Rajesh Mishra, Jaspriya Kaur, Rishen Kapoor) among others. watchTowr has 51,944 web visits with a -4.83% growth and 8,516 LinkedIn followers, ranking #835 globally.

LanceDB (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 256)

LanceDB based in San Francisco is revolutionizing the data layer for AI with its open-source database for multimodal AI applications, targeting AI companies, data scientists, and machine learning engineers. Co-founded by Lei Xu (ex-Cruise, Cloudera) and Chang She (ex-Tubi, Cloudera), LanceDB has a team of 25 and a hiring velocity of 8.7%. Raised $41M, with investors like CRV (Tyler Young, Max Gazor, Gillian O'Brien) and others. With 67,040 web visits (10.67% growth) and 8,672 LinkedIn followers, LanceDB ranks #256 globally.

That’s all for this edition of Specter Monitor!

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