Stealth Startup Spy #337 - by Drake Dukes
Stealth Startup Spy #337
Google DeepMind robotics lead enters stealth, Tiger and Elliott alum builds AI context engine for private marketsEx-Google Gemini PM builds decision intelligence for supply chains
May 07, 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 Google Gemini and TensorFlow PM is building an AI decision layer for global supply chains
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Google DeepMind robotics lead enters stealth
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Harvard alum and former Ginkgo Bioworks exec is building an automated chemical synthesis platform for drug discovery
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Former Meta VP of GenAI and Reality Labs engineering leader is now building in stealth
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Tiger Management and Elliott Management alum is building a context engine for AI-native investment banks
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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
Megha Malpani - Co-Founder at Mercator
🔎 Featured Founder under stealth mode41 weeks ago
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Product Manager – Gemini (prev. Bard) at Google, Product Manager – ChromeOS Intelligence at Google, MBA at Stanford GSB, Botha Chan Innovation Fellow at Stanford University
Mercator is building the decision intelligence layer for global supply chains, replacing spreadsheet-driven workflows with an orchestration platform that coordinates the millions of daily decisions made across competing actors and shifting conditions.
HQ: United States
Industry: Supply Chain AI, Enterprise Software | Team Size: 3
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 9 Months
Crawford Hawkins - Founder & CEO at Virgil
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Masters Degree
Prior Experience: Portfolio Manager at Tiger Management, Investment Professional at Elliott Management Corporation, MBA at Columbia Business School, Associate at Credit Suisse, Co-Founder & CEO at Bottleneck
Virgil is a context engine for AI-native investment banks and private funds, orchestrating data across existing systems and feeding it into AI tools with domain-specific financial context for deal pipeline, LP/GP relationships, and reporting.
HQ: New York, New York, United States
Industry: FinTech, AI Infrastructure, Financial Services
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Year 5 Months
Ila Mathur - Co-Founder at Via
FounderDNA: Masters Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Researcher at Stanford AI Laboratory (SAIL), Venture Fellow at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Venture Fellow at Xfund, Founding Team at Fizz
Via builds custom AI agents with reinforcement learning for enterprise deployments.
HQ: United States
Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise Software | Team Size: 4
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Year 4 Months
Alona Nadler - Co-Founder & CEO at Trayo AI
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Head of Product – AWS Glue, Managed Airflow & AppFlow at Amazon Web Services, Kibana Product Lead at Elastic, Product Lead – ArcSight Security at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Trayo is a signal intelligence platform for go-to-market teams, turning fragmented market data into prioritized, context-aware actions for sales reps and AI agents.
HQ: United States
Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Revenue Intelligence, B2B SaaS | Team Size: 9
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Year
Ian Meyer - Co-Founder & CEO at Satomic
FounderDNA: Masters Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: MBA at MIT Sloan, Harvard alum, Associate Director at Ginkgo Bioworks, Private Equity Associate at Bain Capital, Life Sciences Go-to-Market at Liquid AI
Satomic is an automated, multi-step chemical synthesis platform designed to accelerate small molecule drug discovery and remove the core bottleneck between idea and molecule.
HQ: United States
Industry: Drug Discovery, Deep Tech, Chemical Synthesis | Team Size: 9
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 1 Year 5 Months
🕵️♂️Key Talent Going Under Stealth
Illuminating clues left behind by world class talent and influential innovators who just went into stealth mode
Pannag Sanketi - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Doctorate Degree, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Robotics Lead at Google DeepMind (Gemini Robotics, Table-Tennis Robots, Open X-Embodiment), Berkeley PhD
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Jocelyn Shieh - CEO at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Former FAANG, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Chief Executive Officer at Chaima (a16z) sr005-backed, Accelerator Head (Google Play VC / Startups) at Google Play, Global Business Development Manager, Artificial Intelligence at Unity Technologies, UC Berkeley alum
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Keyu Chen - Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: Staff Machine Learning Scientist at PayPal, Business Intelligence Engineer at Amazon, ex-Deloitte
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 Months
Akram Sheriff - Co-Founder at Stealth Startup
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Masters Degree, Top 10 University
Prior Experience: Head of Platform at Hippocratic AI, Senior Technical Leader Software Engineering at Cisco, Member of Technical Staff R&D at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 4 Months
Amir Frenkel - Founder at Stealth Mode
FounderDNA: Technical Founder, Former FAANG
Prior Experience: VP of GenAI and VP of Engineering & Product, XR Tech - Reality Labs at Meta; Engineering Director, Head of AR & Wearables Engineering at Google; Director, Software Development at Lab126, Chief AI Officer at Eclipse
Connect on:LinkedIn
HQ: United States
Time Spent in Stealth Mode: 2 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.