Stealth Startup Spy #336 - by Drake Dukes
Stealth Startup Spy #336
Ex-Anthropic engineer builds RL environments for automated ML research, Ex-Facebook PM and Stackbit founder goes stealth, & Durin/Hadrian/Stoke Space alum builds human augmentation tech
May 04, 2026
🚀 We just launched a new newsletter — Company Launch Tracker.
We’re tracking company launches as they happen and surfacing the most interesting new founders and startups (yes, all outside of this stealth activity too). If you want to stay ahead of the curve, this is where you’ll find them first.
Right now we’ve got 5 subscribers: my wife, my mom, and that high school buddy who won’t stop pitching me his app. Be smart like them and get in early 👇
We run a live feed inside Gravity that tracks founders entering stealth and companies quietly exiting it.
What you’re reading here is about 1% of the stealth activity we pick up. The full tracker updates in real time as things change and new activity emerges.
If you want earlier access to everything, book some time with us to stay ahead.
In this issue of the Stealth Startup Spy, here is what we will uncover:
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Former Anthropic Technical Staff Member and Stripe engineer is building reinforcement learning environments that automate ML research and engineering
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Ex-Facebook PM and Stackbit CEO (acq. by Netlify) enters stealth
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Former Autodesk Construction exec (via Pype acquisition) is building an AI preconstruction risk platform that catches scope conflicts before they hit budgets
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Amazon Alexa AI and Prime Video engineering leader enters stealth
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Early employee at Durin, Hadrian, and Stoke Space is building next-gen human strength and endurance augmentation tech
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And more…
Now let’s shine the spotlight… 💡💡💡
🕵️♂️Founders Coming Out of Stealth
Real-time updates from founders who debut what they’ve been working on under stealth mode
Jennifer Zhou - Chief Executive Officer at Preference Model
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, Software Engineer at Stripe
Preference Model builds reinforcement learning environments that automate ML research and engineering workflows.
HQ: United States
Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Developer Tools, MLOps | Team Size: 6
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Year 4 Months
Sunil Dorairajan - Founder & CEO at Wyre AI
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Masters Degree, Top 10 University, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Co-Founder & CEO at Pype (acquired by Autodesk), Senior Director at Autodesk Construction Solutions, MS Construction Management at Virginia Tech
Wyre AI is an AI-powered preconstruction risk management platform that analyzes construction document sets to auto-generate structured scope packages and identify coordination conflicts before they impact project budgets or timelines.
HQ: Washington DC-Baltimore Area, United States
Industry: ConTech, AI, Construction | Team Size: 12
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Year 3 Months
Kevin Chiu - Co-Founder & CEO at Thea Technology
🔎 Featured Founder under stealth mode inStealthStartSpy#184
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Co-Founder, COO & CPO at Catalyst Software, Investor at Digraph (acquired by DataDog), Angel at First Round Capital, Head of Sales & Revenue Operations at DigitalOcean, Forbes 30 Under 30 (Enterprise Technology, 2019)
Thea Technology is building an AI doctor for aesthetics, using a single photo to recommend OTC products, facilitate access to prescriptions, and match users with cosmetic treatments and providers at competitive pricing.
HQ: United States
Industry: HealthTech, Consumer AI, Aesthetics | Team Size: 9
Latest Funding: $4M Pre-Seed Round on 4/29/2026
Key Investors: General Catalyst, Stellation Capital, Dnipro VC
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 24 Months
Elizabeth Dorman - Co-Founder & CEO at Era
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Senior Product Engineer at HP IQ, Product Engineer at Humane, Intern at Apple (Prototyping), BS Engineering at Princeton University
Connect on:LinkedIn
Era is the intelligence layer for physical devices. The platform that lets anyone give their products the ability to think, listen, and respond in a style that’s entirely their own.
HQ: United States
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet | Team Size: 11
Latest Funding: $9M Seed Round on 4/23/2026 | Total Funding: $11M
Key Investors: Abstract Ventures, BoxGroup, Collaborative Fund, Mozilla Ventures, Topology Ventures, Betaworks
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 10 months
David Venegas - Founder & CEO at Edgerun Industries
FounderDNA: Technical Founder
Prior Experience: Head of Operations (Employee #1) at Durin, Engineer at Hadrian, Software Engineer at Stoke Space
Edgerun Industries is building next-generation technology to augment human strength and endurance, with active development across the U.S. and international partners.
HQ: United States
Industry: Robotics, Deep Tech, Human Augmentation | Team Size: 2
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 5 Months
🕵️♂️Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Dan Barak - Co-Founder at Stealth
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Former FAANG, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Principal Product Manager at Facebook, Co-Founder, CEO at Stackbit (acquired by Netlify), VP Product at Netlify, Group Product Manager at Lyft
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Hrishi Amravatkar - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Leadership - Interactive Ads Prime Video Player at Amazon, Engineering Leadership - Alexa AI LLM Skills Kit at Amazon, Head of Platform Engineering at Secureframe, Sr Engineering Manager at Box
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Jose Enrique Hernandez - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree
Prior Experience: Director, Threat Research Team at Splunk, Senior Vice President of Technology at ZENEDGE, Cloud Threat Researcher at Lacework, SOC Manager at Fastly
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Dan Wallace - Founder at Stealth Startup
Prior Experience: Chief Revenue Officer at Nuvitek, Area Vice President at ServiceNow, Strategic Advisor at momba.ai
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Yossi Barshishat - Co-Founder at Stealth
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Prior Exit
Prior Experience: Co-Founder and VP R&D at Imvision (Acquired by Intuit), AI and API Security Manager at Intuit, Co-Founder and VP R&D at Quado Media
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: Israel
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 3 Months
🚨Here’s the deal 🚨This email has gotten too big. Exciting, but with more people following it, the edge diminishes. I’ve thought long and hard about what to do to preserve the value in the signals. I’m not sure about the final direction yet, but in the meantime I’ve been sending an email 48 hours earlier to a select group of paid subscribers. The feedback has been pretty positive so I’m going to open up the list for another 100 spots. To get signals early, Apply here!
Stay Stealthy,
Drake
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Stealth Startup Spy is a data-driven newsletter for investors, journalists and tech enthusiasts interested in uncovering the next big move for key talent, real-time stealth company launches and technology advancements not in plain sight. We leverage the technology built at Gravity to shine a light on the hidden world of stealth startups.