Daxos Capital · sourcing for Analog Ventures

13 founders in stealth

Every one has left their last job and is building full time. None has raised an institutional round. 5 in commerce & distribution, 4 in healthcare, 2 in financial services, 2 in gov / security / trust. Below the top list, 31 more we rate lower but tracked anyway.

694
Stealth cos screened
13
Top list
8
Dropped on checks

What we screened for

Repeat founders and senior startup operators, roughly seven to ten years in, usually the kind who pair with a strong technical co-founder. We weighted operators who came up through Series B to D companies over people with famous logos on the CV, and we kept to foundational industries: healthcare, financial services, energy, and the infrastructure under everyday life.

On what they're building: most of these are genuinely dark. Databases will show a description for a stealth company, but it is generated from the founder's previous company and it is wrong. We only state a direction where the founder said it themselves or we found it independently. Where it says dark, it is dark.

The list

left their job, building full time, no institutional round
Miles Guerrero Commerce & distribution San Francisco · left Jan 2026

Ten and a half years at DoorDash, ending as Head of In Store. Before that Group PM and Head of Merchant Logistics.

SignalWas dark; his own page now points somewhere. He writes about building where software meets the real world, from an operations background, running experiments that don't scale to derisk fast. Against ten years at DoorDash ending as Head of In Store, that reads as software for physical retail or last-mile operations. Still no company name or domain, but no longer a blank.

Katya Chupryna Financial services New York · left Apr 2026

Co-founded Octaura, the Citi-backed electronic trading venue for syndicated loans and CLOs. Before that ran Markets Strategic Investments at Citi for five years. Board seats at Trumid, Genesis Global, Arteria AI. Princeton.

SignalNow named. Her profile describes SPRINT, Spread Products Investment Technologies, a firm that invests in and incubates fintech for credit markets. A straight line from Octaura and her Citi credit years. The clearest of the thirteen: a stated company and model, not a database guess.

Sandeep Ramachandran Commerce & distribution San Francisco · left Feb 2025

Ten years of supply-chain and operations software: Director of Product at Resilinc for six years, Product Lead at Flexport, Principal PM at Gusto. Co-founded Eon Info Solutions before that.

SignalNo longer dark. He states the product: an AI-native platform that turns days of preconstruction work into hours for contractors, covering drawing ingestion, symbol extraction, bill of quantities, and compliance checks. Preconstruction still runs on PDFs and tribal knowledge, and he is replacing that. Full time since early 2025.

Neel Sarwal Commerce & distribution San Francisco · left May 2025

Founding engineer at Vori (grocery software) and senior engineer at Instacart.

SignalNot dark. Founder and CEO of Rapide (rapide.io): agentic AI running the retail back office, cost, pricing, ordering, inventory and receiving, for grocery and multi-vendor retail. Live product with a login and an outbound sales motion, no round on record. If you want this one, the window is closing.

Vivian Nwakah Healthcare New York · left 2026 (confirm)

Founded Medsaf and ran it eight years — venture-backed pharmaceutical supply chain fighting counterfeit drugs and hospital procurement. Then Director of Product Management at Pfizer.

SignalConfirmed and stated. Her headline reads Building Supply Chain Infrastructure in Complex Markets, consistent with the pharma supply chain she built at Medsaf on about $5M raised. Direction is clear. The one open item is her Pfizer record's future end date, so confirm she is fully out.

Benjamin Feldon Gov / security / trust New York · left Apr 2026

Senior Engineering Manager on AWS Control Tower at Amazon, and before that Managing Director at Deloitte. Also ran AWS solutions architecture for financial services and professional services at Check Point.

SignalSharper now. His page says he is building a new AI-native approach to cloud security, narrower than generic security tooling. Straight out of running AWS Control Tower. Three months out, nothing raised, the earliest catchable person here.

Stylianos Serghiou, MD PhD Healthcare San Francisco · left Dec 2025

VP and Head of Clinical Data Science at Prolaio (AI cardiac care). Google Health AI resident. Stanford PhD, Edinburgh MBChB.

SignalDirection is now explicit. He describes healthcare that is continuously learning, deeply personalized, and accessible at scale: multimodal clinical AI that turns complex health data into tools clinicians trust. The product is still unnamed. Needs a commercial co-founder, having never held a P&L.

Tommy Jiang Commerce & distribution Austin · left Feb 2026

VP of Data, AI and Robotics Platforms at Moderna. General Manager of AWS Supply Chain at Amazon, after six years running Amazon grocery supply-chain technology.

SignalPartly lifted. His page reads as a broad executive bio, AI, data and automation at scale, which confirms the AI-plus-supply-chain lane but not a product. Pharma manufacturing plus supply chain still fits the regulated-physical pattern. Ask about four roles in two years and the earlier founding attempt he left inside twelve months.

Alex Dunbrack Gov / security / trust San Francisco · left May 2026

Co-founder and COO of Vectrix (YC S20), acquired by Cloudflare in 2022. Stayed four years at Cloudflare on product. Security background at Autodesk and PlanGrid.

SignalStill dark on the product. His page adds only 'no better time to build something new' over the Stealth AI, YC, ex-Cloudflare headline. The direction stays data security and AI, with a clean break in May 2026. Worth a call for the operator, not for a stated product.

Pablo Graiver Healthcare New York · left Jan 2026

Founded Antidote (formerly TrialReach) and ran it a decade — clinical-trial matching, venture-backed. Co-founded Kelkoo, sold to Yahoo for about €475M. Later VP Digital Strategy and M&A at IQVIA.

SignalA shade clearer. His headline now names the lane, digital health and clinical trials, matching the decade he ran Antidote. The product is still dark. The real risk is unchanged: with a Kelkoo exit behind him, he may not want a first check.

Ashish Sinha Commerce & distribution New York · left Jul 2025

Senior Staff Engineer at Instacart, marketplace engineering at Lyft, VP at Morgan Stanley. Co-founded and was President of Highstock.

SignalStill dark. His page says only 'building something new,' no more than the headline. The marketplace-engineering record at Instacart and Lyft is the reason he is here. Highstock ran fifteen months and ended July 2025, worth asking how before the meeting.

Rodrigo Menezes Financial services New York · left Dec 2024

Director of Engineering at Credit Karma. Before that co-founder and CTO of SeedFi, consumer lending, venture-backed.

SignalLittle added. His page confirms the CTO role and the SeedFi exit but states no product. The direction still reads as browser-task automation, which is horizontal; the regulated-fintech engineering record is why he is on the list. Someone else is CEO.

Brian Hughes Healthcare New York · left Dec 2025

SVP and General Manager at hims & hers, running a telehealth P&L. Five years as a GM at Uber, Senior Director at Spotify. West Point, HBS, US Army Cavalry captain.

SignalStill unconfirmed. His page is a broad hyper-growth-operator bio under a bare 'Founder' headline, with no mention of Vael or what it does. A strong operator out of hims & hers and Uber, but the company is a name without a product we can verify.

Second tier

tracked, lower confidence
FounderSectorWhereBefore
Nitin RaoEnergy & industrialsSan FranciscoBuilt Cloudflare's global network — SVP Global Infrastructure for ten years, then interim Chief Product Officer. Stealth record is one month old and completely dark. Pedigree this strong usually skips a small first check.
Tommy PeeplesFinancial servicesBrooklynCo-founded Plover Parametrics (YC W22), parametric climate-risk insurance. Deployment Strategist at Palantir for four and a half years. Now building Postal, an AI digital mailbox. It is live with about fifteen people, so past the first-check moment. The insurtech background is the on-thesis part.
Andres VelasquezFinancial servicesNew YorkHead of Product at RobinFood, LatAm delivery. Product and ops at Tributi, Colombian tax filing. Co-founder of Atina, “AI agents that show up in your P&L.” Right shape, but six years in and no verifiable company footprint yet.
John SlumpHealthcareChicagoCo-founded FARAPULSE, acquired by Boston Scientific for around $295M. CFO at two more companies that sold to Integra and J&J. Three exits, but this is implantable medtech and he is still CEO of Atraverse Medical. Not full time on the new company.
Andrew UllmannCommerce & distributionSan FranciscoHead of Dasher Experience Support at DoorDash through the IPO. Product leadership at Stellic, Fora and SFR3. Left both roles in April 2026, so the timing is right. His headline claims two prior companies that do not appear anywhere in his record — ask about that first.
Umberto JavaroneTransportationMilanGeneral Manager Italy at FreeNow. Ran urban mobility for Europcar. Four years at Apple. Real operator, wrong geography for a US first check, and he has a second venture running in parallel.
Keshav SivakumarCommerce & distributionLondonForward Deployed Engineer at Palantir. Co-founder and CTO of Lumitics, IoT food-waste hardware for commercial kitchens. No headline, no signal, and a seventeen-month gap. Nothing to pitch yet.
Miles HobbyHealthcareSan FranciscoVP of Product at Payscale after they bought Agora, the company he co-founded and ran. Genuinely out of Nervana, the company he co-founded most recently, which is still operating without him. Ask what happened.
Val MiftakhovEnergy & industrialsSan CarlosFounded ZeroAvia (hydrogen aviation) and eMotorWerks, sold to Enel. Left the ZeroAvia CEO seat in May 2026, still on the board. Raised $339M at ZeroAvia. Whatever he builds next will not be a $1M first check.
John HohmEnergy & industrialsNew YorkSenior Software Engineer at Fulcrum
Manav KhandelwalHealthcareNew YorkProduct at Stripe
Charles NeugebauerEnergy & industrialsLos AltosCEO/Founder at Leafburst, Inc.
Brian ConyerHealthcareBrooklynChief Commercial Officer at CareValidate
Josiah ParappallyFinancial servicesNew YorkStaff Software Engineer at Ramp
Rui AguiarCommerce & distributionAltoinvestor/advisor at various startups
Chris ConleyFinancial servicesBostonSoftware Engineer at Stripe
Ruhul Amin ObeFinancial servicesLondonCo-Founder at Onfido
Jay ShekHealthcareNew YorkVP, Consumer Product at Hone Health
Mai Huong TranCommerce & distributionNew YorkHead of Enterprise Strategic Partnership at CharityRx
Yvonne ChenGov / security / trustSan FranciscoProduct Lead, Builder in Residence at Neo
Michael LeeFinancial servicesSan MateoProduct Lead at Stripe
Shirley ZhangHealthcareNew YorkHead of Ops & Special Projects at Create Wellness
Mary StasinopoulosHealthcareNew YorkHead of Commercial Insights at Seed Health
Djordje MilosevicFinancial servicesBelgradeDirector of Product, Treasury & Finance at Aspire
Rishi PenmetchaEnergy & industrialsNew YorkEngineering at Traba
Shahar PelegEnergy & industrialsYorkDirector, ThinQ Energy and Commercial Energy Business - Product and Program Management at LG Electronics North America
Jon GoldsmithCommerce & distributionSan FranciscoFounder at Tetra (YC W17)
Ned ScherFinancial servicesSan FranciscoSenior Manager, New Business Development at DoorDash
Joachim ValenteGov / security / trustSan FranciscoHead of Security Intelligence at Neon
Siqi Shi, Mba, Ms, PmpEnergy & industrialsNew YorkProduct Management Director at Zuora
Max TabachnikHealthcareNew YorkStaff Product Manager at Tomorrow Health