Specter Monitor #204 ❄️

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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Marco Squarci, Co-Founder & CEO of Specter joined the etn. boys last week.
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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.

Peec AI hit $4M ARR

Hit about $4M in ARR in roughly 10 months post‑launch in 2025; CEO also targets $20M+ ARR by end of 2026; company announced a $21M Series A.

Creme Digital hit $3M ARR

Founder stated Creme Digital reached $250,000 in MRR.

Flodesk hit $35M ARR

Reported $35M ARR and stated the company is profitable.

VoiceDrop hit $1.7M ARR

Founder reports $140k MRR; attached dashboard shows $141K MRR (Jan 2025). Founder bio also lists $2.5M+ ARR.

🔮 Stealth Opportunities of the Week

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

Rahul Kashyap

Rahul Kashyap, SF-based, with 24 years of experience from Fortune 500 to prior VC-backed, serial founder, and many exits. Holds a Master's in Software Systems from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and a B.E in Computer Science from Vellore Institute of Technology. Career involves Co-Founder at E8 Security (raising $21.8M then acquired by VMWare), President & CEO at Awake Security (acquired by Arista Networks), Chief Security Architect at Bromium (acquired by HP), CTO at Cylance Inc. (acquired by Blackberry), and more! Known for his leadership in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and as a visionary in the tech startup ecosystem. Massive 16,892 LinkedIn following. Now leading a new venture in stealth mode. Currently in stealth 👻

Gleb Biserov

Gleb, based in SF, has 18 years of experience from Fortune 500, VC-backed experience to top university education. Holds a Doctoral Degree in Friedrich Nietzsche from the Institute of Philosophy RAS. Career includes Venture Partner at SpringTide Ventures (into 3rd vintage), Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company (to start its internal venture capital fund), Founder at Adorno, Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, Sales at American Express, and as a Startup MBA Intern at Cincinnati Incorporated - NVBOTS Business Unit. Founded Adorno, focusing on innovations in senior care, medtech, and real estate. A strategic thinker with a deep understanding of the startup ecosystem. Has 1,890 LinkedIn followers. Now founding a startup in stealth and on the side helping other founders in AI, healthtech, robotics, and proptech productize, build customer pipelines, and develop VC partnerships. Currently in stealth 👻

Sagan Schultz, MD, MBA

Sagan, based in NYC, has 16 years of experience with prior VC-backed, a strong academic background at top universities. Holds a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a MBA from New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Founded WellWell, a functional beverage brand (raised Series A), sold into Whole Foods, Walmart, Kroger, Erewhon and 1500+ independent retailers. Career involves Associate Research Fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine, Cognitive Neuroscience Associate at New York University, Consultant | Life Sciences at McKinsey & Company, Head of Product at RudderStack, and Product at Linear. Passionate about the health tech space with a knack for neuroscience and longevity. Has 6,899 LinkedIn followers. Now leading a stealth venture. Currently in stealth 👻

Daniel Kreter

Daniel, based in Berlin, with 21 years of experience with major tech pedigree and prior exits. Holds a Master's Degree in Finance from Antwerp Management School. Career involves COO at DaWanda GmbH, COO & Managing Director at Taxfix, and COO at Taxfix. Daniel led BD at Zalando SE and Project Manager at Commerz Business Consulting GmbH, with earlier roles as Trainee at Norddeutsche Landesbank. Expert in operational efficiency and strategic growth within the tech and e-commerce sectors. Has 3,268 LinkedIn followers. Now embarking on a new venture in stealth mode. Currently in stealth 👻

Timothée Le Borgne

Timothée Le Borgne, based in Paris, with 21 years of experience from serial founder, Fortune 500 to major tech companies, and prior VC-backed. Holds a Master's Degree in Management from Institut Mines-Télécom Business School. Career includes CEO at NomadCast, CPO at RATPgroup, Founder at GameTube SAS, and Founder/CEO at Gamasix. Previous experience as Business Process Re-engineering at Apple, Marketing & Business Planning at Domosys Corp. (Québec City), Product Director at Doctolib, Product Lead at Tribe App, VP Product at Jellysmack, and VP Product at Moments Lab. Founded Gamasix and GameTube, leading the way in gaming and video streaming innovation. Passion for creating disruptive tech products. Has 1,962 LinkedIn followers. Now pioneering a new venture in the AI space. 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.

Elyos AI (🔥 featured 7x in 90 days)

Elyos AI, London-based, developing fully autonomous customer service agents for trades and field services. By integrating seamlessly with all trades CRMs, the AI Customer Service Reps autonomously book and schedule jobs, streamlining operations for trades businesses. Founded by Philippa Brown (ex-OVO, Rolls-Royce), Panos Stravopodis (ex-Bynder, Funding Circle UK, Vancis B.V.), and Adrian Johnston (ex-Una Brands, Goldman Sachs, King Solomon Academy). Raised $3.5M from investors including Y Combinator, Endgame Capital, Hi2 Venture Fund, Rebel Fund, Saturnin Pugnet, and Zeno Partners. Team size of 17, is at an early growth stage, focusing on revolutionizing customer service in the trades sector through AI.

source.dev (🔥 featured 3x in 90 days)

source.dev, located in London, developed AI-native software tools that accelerate development of next-generation devices. Co-founded by David Brazdil (ex-Entrepreneur First, Hadean, Google) and Serban Constantinescu (ex-Iview, Linaro, Google). source.dev has secured $3.3M in funding from 515 Ventures, Episode 1 Ventures, and Seedcamp. Team size of 8, is in the early stages of growth, focusing on creating AI-native DevOpsSec for long-term software updates to smart devices.

Lore (🔥 featured 5x in 90 days)

Lore, based in NYC, is redefining the fan experience by consolidating fandom lore into a single, user-friendly platform. Aims to fix the fragmented, toxic, and broken online fan experience by offering an organized, intuitive, and customizable environment for fans to discover and engage with the lore of their favorite stories and interests. Founded by Zehra Naqvi (ex-Headline, Republic, Gold House), raised $1.1M from Initialized Capital Management, Precursor Ventures, and Village Global. With a focus on the community and lifestyle, mobile platforms and apps, media, and sports industries, Lore is at an early growth stage, seeking to make being a fan fun again.

Starcloud (🔥 featured 8x in 90 days)

Starcloud, HQ in Redmond, Washington, is pioneering the construction of megawatt-scale data centers in space, scalable to gigawatt capacity, to serve the future of AI. Founded by Philip Johnston (ex-BNP Paribas CIB, McKinsey & Company, Opontia [acquired by Perfection]), Ezra Feilden (ex-Samsung Electronics, Parker Aerospace, Oxford Space Systems), and Adi Oltean (ex-SpaceCrane, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, SpaceX). Starcloud has raised $23.9M from investors like NFX, Nebular, and Y Combinator. Team of 21, Starcloud is in a growth stage, leveraging falling launch costs to exploit the benefits of space for AI training clusters.

Gensyn (🔥 featured 3x in 90 days)

Gensyn, located in London, is developing a ML computing protocol for the world's deep learning models by connecting all machine learning-competent compute hardware globally. Co-founded by Ben Fielding (ex-Fair Custodian, Northumbria University, Research Analytics) and Harry Grieve (ex-Kames Capital, Storq (app), Simmons & Company International). Has secured $50.6M in funding from 7percent Ventures, Anand Iyer, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and others. Team size of 47, is in the late growth stage, offering products like RL Swarm, Verde, and NoLoCo to facilitate decentralized and efficient AI model training.

🍒 Company Opportunities of the Week

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

Topaz Labs (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 93)

Topaz Labs, in Dallas, Texas, offers professional-grade AI-powered photo and video editing software, including Photo AI for image enhancement, Video AI for video upscaling and restoration, and Gigapixel for image upscaling up to 16x, catering to over 3 million customers. Founded by Albert Yang (ex-Fortemedia, Techwell). Team of 77 with funding of $200,000. Has achieved significant traction with 3,117,154 web visits, showing a 9.85% growth, and has 10,889 LinkedIn followers. No recent news, but the company's focus on integrating with professional workflows and offering standalone applications underscores its commitment to enhancing digital imagery.

Apolink (f.k.a Bifrost Orbital) (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 97)

Apolink, in SF, pioneering the development of a real-time, always-on orbital communications network for spacecraft, targeting satellite operators and spacecraft companies. Founded by Emily Karlzen (ex-Arch Rift), Geffen Avraham (Thiel Fellow '2022, ex-Skyline Celestial), and Onkar Singh Batra (ex-onXr Labs, Rise Fellow @ Schmidt Futures). Team of 8 with recent funding of $4,300,000 from Kanav Kariya, Unshackled Ventures, Laura Crabtree, Rebel Fund, Benjamin Bryant, 468 Capital, Y Combinator, Maiora Ventures. Despite the lack of publicized news, Apolink’s minimal web presence, evidenced by 334 visits, alongside 1,082 LinkedIn followers, hints at a nascent stage of development within the highly specialized space communications sector.

Gumloop (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 287)

Gumloop, in Vancouver, Canada, is revolutionizing workflow automation with its no-code AI platform, enabling the creation of complex workflows visually. Co-founded by Max Brodeur-Urbas (ex-Microsoft, Competitive Programming at McGill) and Rahul Behal (ex-Arctic Wolf, Amazon), the 22-member team has attracted $20,104,711 in funding, notably from First Round Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, among others. Gumloop's traction is evident with 305,925 web visits and 16,803 LinkedIn followers, signaling robust interest in AI-driven automation solutions.

Robeaute (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 384)

Robeaute in Paris is at the forefront of neurosurgical innovation with its modular microrobotic platform, designed for precision diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of the brain. Founded by Joana Cartocci and Bertrand Duplat (ex-Rythm). Team has grown to 39 employees and secured $28M in funding from Cherry Ventures, EIC Accelerator, and others. Despite a significant drop in web visits (-79.27%), Robeaute maintains a solid online following with 5,010 LinkedIn followers, underscoring the medical community's interest in its groundbreaking technology.

Enode (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 265)

Enode in Oslo is empowering the green energy transition with its unified API that connects and controls over 1000 energy devices, from EVs to solar inverters. Founded by Thorvald Thorsnes (ex-The Boston Consulting Group), Henrik Langeland (ex-Alva Technologies AS [acquired by Ambita AS]), and Nikolai Heum (ex-Finstart Nordic, Flex Funding Norge), have steered the team of 59 to secure $17.2M in funding from Creandum, Alliance VC, Lowercarbon Capital,BoxGroup, Matt Cohler, Skyfall Ventures, Andrew Lundsten, MCJ, Y Combinator, Andreas Lundgren, et al. Enode's impact is notable, with over 250 million energy customers reached, support for 1000+ devices, and 100 GWh managed through its platform, alongside a 41% increase in web visits to 78,312 and 10,786 LinkedIn followers, highlighting significant market engagement and potential for further growth in the sustainable energy sector.

That’s all for this edition of Specter Monitor!

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