Specter Monitor #208 🏆

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. ✨

✨ Latest on Specter Awards

Find full profiles on 2025 Award-winning companies before anyone else. Which Awards? Apple, Google, Deloitte, Sifted, + more. Certified Bangers 🤌

💸 Revenue Signals of the Week

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

Football.Fun hit $40M ARR

Adam McIntee reports $40M ARR; stated FDF generated $10M+ revenue over 13 weeks post‑mainnet (Aug 2025) and returned $4.5M to player markets; prior 10‑month spend was ~$350K.

TxtCart hit $4.6M ARR

Hunter Crigler reports $4.6M ARR; reports $4.6M ARR as of Dec 2025; earlier stage referenced around $1M ARR when the team was first hired.

Senja hit $1M ARR

Wilson Wilson reports $1.0M ARR; states current ARR of $1M and plans to grow to $2M ARR in 2026.

friendli hit $2K ARR

Matt Anderson reports $2K ARR; MRR reached $135 in one month (Dec 2025), implying ~$1,620 annualized recurring revenue.

🔮 Stealth Opportunities of the Week

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

Patrick Flynn

Patrick Flynn, with a 23-year career in executive leadership and entrepreneurship, has co-founded Augurisk and NES, Inc., raising $120k in funding. His career includes roles such as Vice President at Entrata and Zenya.io, where he led to its acquisition by Primestone Partners, and Executive Vice President at Churchill Corporate Services. Flynn's tenure at Equity Residential saw him rise from Leasing Consultant to General Manager across multiple locations. Holds a background in Management Information Systems from the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst. Flynn's strategic insights have been honed through board membership at the Corporate Housing Providers Association, where he influenced industry trends. With 4,063 LinkedIn followers, he is now the Founder & CEO of a stealth startup. Currently in stealth 👻

Aamir Panjvani

Aamir Panjvani, with 31 years of experience, co-founded BlueRoads and has held pivotal roles such as Chief Data Officer at Sanofi-Aventis and Chief Architect at Zoetis Pharmaceuticals. His tenure at Pfizer as Chief Enterprise Architect underscores his Fortune 500 experience. Panjvani's leadership at the United Nations and Organon highlights his strategic acumen in enterprise architecture. Holds a B.Sc. in Robotics & Machine Intelligence from the University of California, San Diego. With 774 LinkedIn followers, he is now the Founder of a stealth venture. Currently in stealth 👻

Inaki Berenguer

Inaki Berenguer, a serial founder with 26 years of experience, co-founded CoverWallet, Klink.com, Pixable, and iPronics, with notable exits including CoverWallet's acquisition by Aon. His career includes roles at Microsoft and McKinsey & Company, and he has been a research engineer at Intel and NEC Labs. Holds a Telecom Engineering degree from UPV, a PhD in Engineering from Cambridge University, and an MBA from MIT. With 20,371 LinkedIn followers, he is Managing Partner at LifeX Ventures and Co-Founder of a stealth AI startup. Currently in stealth 👻

Vicky Cheng

Vicky Cheng, a serial founder with 14 years of experience, co-founded Let's Day Out and Victoria, and is involved with NVIDIA's Inception Program. Her career includes internships at CLSA, National Australia Bank, and King & Wood Mallesons. Holds a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and an MSc in Finance from SOAS University of London. Fluent in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin, she has 3,984 LinkedIn followers and is now Co-founder and CEO of a stealth startup. Currently in stealth 👻

Christian Gabriel

Christian Gabriel, with 20 years of experience as a serial founder, co-founded Capdesk, CreativeCPH, and HeartReacher. His career includes roles at Carta, where he served as VP GTM and Senior Director for UK & Europe, and as a Board Member at the Danish Crowdsourcing Association. Holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Communication from the University of Copenhagen. With 15,784 LinkedIn followers, he is a Limited Partner at Emblem and CEO & Co-Founder of a stealth venture. 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.

Cursive.ai (🔥 featured 2x in 90 days)

cursive.ai, located in London, offers instant, high-quality generative experiences embedded everywhere. They are building the foundation models and generative infrastructure to enable dynamic, interactive, and contextual software. Founded by Olivier Henaff (ex-Google DeepMind, DeepMind, New York University), with investors Mandeep Singh (Trouva), Tobias Halloran. Small lean team - cursive.ai is pioneering a future where software is dynamic and interactive.

Namespace Labs (🔥 featured 6x in 90 days)

Namespace Labs, located in San Francisco, accelerates the development workflow of fast-moving software engineering teams with specialized compute infrastructure. Their products include Managed GitHub Runners and high-performance remote Docker builders. Founded by Hugo Santos (ex-Google, Blaast, NEC Research & Development), raised $8.5M in funding from Crossover VC, K5 Global Technology, Kivu Ventures, Olima Ventures, Susa Ventures, Verissimo Ventures, Z5 Capital. Small team, Namespace Labs is aiming to provide critical developer infrastructure with enterprise-grade security.

Staer (🔥 featured 4x in 90 days)

Staer, located in Malmö, Sweden, is developing the core physical AI software and algorithms stack for autonomous mobile robot fleets. Their technology enables robots to map environments and plan movements autonomously. Founded by Jan Erik Solem (ex-Overture Maps Foundation, Meta, Mapillary), Johan Gyllenspetz (ex-Gyllen Tech, Meta, Mapillary), Yubin Kuang (ex-Meta, Mapillary, Apple), and Carl Silbersky (ex-VitroLabs Inc, BIMobject, Polychain Capital), with investors not disclosed. With a team of 3 employees, Staer is focused on enabling truly autonomous robot operations.

Yutori (🔥 featured 5x in 90 days)

Yutori, located in San Francisco, is building AI agents that can reliably perform everyday digital tasks on the web, aiming to create an AI chief-of-staff for everyone. Founded by Dhruv Batra (ex-Caliper, Meta, Georgia Institute of Technology) and Devi Parikh (ex-Meta, Meta, Georgia Institute of Technology), raised $15.0M in funding from Radical Ventures, Akshay Kothari, Amjad Masad, Bryan McCann, Fei-Fei Li, Felicis, Guillermo Rauch, Jamie Cuffe, Jeff Dean, Jon Turow, Julien Chaumond, Logan Kilpatrick, Michael Brown, Michele Catasta, Oliver Cameron, SV Angel, Sandhya Venkatachalam, Sarah Guo, Soleio, and Vladlen Koltun. With a team of 31 employees, Yutori is reimagining web interactions with agent-first technology.

GlassFlow (🔥 featured 2x in 90 days)

GlassFlow, located in Berlin, deduplicates and joins Kafka data streams for ClickHouse, offering an open-source solution that reduces load on ClickHouse. Founded by Armend Avdijaj (ex-Sponsokit, German Expansion GmbH, Mister Spex) and Ashish Bagri (ex-Sponsokit, rvolt, CrossEngage), raised $5.9M in funding from HTGF (High-Tech Gruenderfonds), Robin Capital, Roosh Ventures, Tiny Supercomputer Investment Company, Upfront Ventures, 3cubed Ventures, Bob van Luijt, Eva Spannagl, Fadelia, Heikki Nousiainen, Kamil Mieczakowski, Keith Grose, Roland Fassauer, Taimur Rashid, and Thomas Dohmke. With a team of 10 employees, GlassFlow is targeting data teams using Kafka and ClickHouse.

🍒 Company Opportunities of the Week

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

Magic Patterns (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 84)

Magic Patterns, headquartered in San Francisco, is an AI-driven prototyping platform tailored for product teams, designers, and engineers to swiftly build and iterate UI prototypes. The platform, which supports rapid experimentation and user feedback collection, offers a secure, enterprise-ready environment and integrates with product management tools to convert user stories into visual designs. Founded by Alexander Danilowicz (ex-Canopy, LiveRamp, Bank of America) and Teddy Ni (ex-Left On Read, Canopy, Robinhood), the company employs 7 people. Magic Patterns has raised $6M, with Standard Capital (Dalton Caldwell, Martina Tokosova Rivas), Essence VC (Ibby Syed, Michael Ludden), and Pioneer Fund (Zach Waterfield, William Collis) among its investors. The company ranks #84 globally, with 235,610 web visits (-15.3% growth) and 7,930 LinkedIn followers.

Cuckoo (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 104)

Cuckoo, based in San Francisco, offers an AI interpreter for global sales, marketing, and support teams, providing real-time translation in over 20 languages. The platform adapts to the context of discussions by learning from keywords and documents, ensuring accurate interpretations tailored to specific industries. Co-founded by Yong Hee Lee and Gunwoo Kim (ex-투데이, KRAFTON Inc., VCNC), Cuckoo employs 4 people. The company has secured $2.24M in funding, with Y Combinator, Bass Investment (Dong-Eon Choi, Minhong Jang), and BonAngels Venture Partners (Jong-Il Yoon, Soo-heon Lee) as notable investors. The company ranks #104 globally, with 21,395 web visits (+35.2% growth) and 993 LinkedIn followers.

Polar (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 118)

Polar, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, is developing an open-source monetization platform for developers, bridging product analytics, CRM, and billing. The platform features usage-based billing with automatic event ingestion, automated SaaS entitlements, and global merchant of record services. Founded by Birk Nilson (ex-Shopify, Tictail, Stardoll), Polar employs 27 people. The company has raised $13.2M, with Accel (Ivan Zhou, Mukta K.) among its backers. Polar ranks #118 globally, with 445,871 web visits (+20.7% growth) and 2,937 LinkedIn followers.

GetVocal AI (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 136)

GetVocal AI, based in Paris, specializes in AI phone agents that provide businesses with control over customer conversation outcomes. Their Conversational Graph OS structures and optimizes conversational data for goal-oriented interactions. Co-founded by Roy Moussa (ex-Trax Retail, Qopius, Schlumberger) and Antonin Bertin (ex-Kompanion, Trax Retail), the company employs 37 people. GetVocal AI has raised $28.82M, with Creandum (Vikas Gupta, Carl Fritjofsson) and Speedinvest (Artem Zhuravlev, Florian Gschwandtner) among its investors. The company ranks #136 globally, with 3,660 web visits (+124.3% growth) and 4,407 LinkedIn followers.

Briefcase (🌟 Specter – Global Rank 190)

Briefcase, headquartered in London, provides AI-native bookkeeping and month-end automation for accounting practices, offering superior speed and accuracy with features like automated VAT detection and intelligent learning capabilities. Co-founded by Ján Stehlík (ex-Entrepreneur First, Nous, Snyk) and Reuben Steenkamp (ex-Entrepreneur First, Starling Bank), the company employs 9 people. Briefcase has raised $3M, with Earlybird Venture Capital (Paul-Lukas Hoffschmidt, Stephan Rauscher) and Entrepreneurs First (Urmil Shah, Tom Carrington Smith) as key investors. The company ranks #190 globally, with 10,695 web visits (+196.8% growth) and 1,099 LinkedIn followers.

That’s all for this edition of Specter Monitor!

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