Today’s Talent Pools

Spade, a five-year-old New York startup that runs a platform that cleans up and organizes transaction data so financial institutions can understand what each payment is for, raised a $40M Series B round led by Oak HC/FT, with Andreessen Horowitz, Flourish, Gradient, NAventures, National Bank of Canada, and Y Combinator also opting in.

  1. Cooper Hart in Canada (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: Co-Founder & CTO @ Spade (4.5 yrs)

    2. Description: Left on 9/25 with no updates

Meta has hired the founders and team behind AI startup Dreamer (FKA /dev/agents) to work on AI agents within its Superintelligence Labs. (One of those founders is Hugo Barra, who previously worked at Meta.) The deal excludes Dreamer's technology, and the future of Dreamer, which raised $56M at a $500M valuation in 2024, is unclear.

  1. Ari Grant in SF (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: CTO @ /dev/agents (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Senior PM & Engineering Director @ Facebook (built foundational iOS/Android/Web org), Graphics Quality Engineer @ Apple

    3. Description: Left /dev/agents on 8/25. “Exploring ideas with AI.”

    4. Contact: [email protected]

  2. Harrison Kessel in SF (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: MTS @ /dev/agents (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Co-Founder @ Aviato ($2M from 8VC, Soma, SoftBank), Founding SWE & 3rd FTE @ Zeet ($4M from Sequoia)

    3. Description: Left /dev/agents on 8/25 with no updates

Amazon has purchased Fauna Robotics, a two-year-old New York startup that is developing a kid-size humanoid robot for home use. Terms were not disclosed. Fauna's backers include Kleiner Perkins, Quiet Capital, and Lux Capital.

  1. Lerrel Pinto in NYC (Co-Founder @ ARI)

    1. Role: Co-Founder @ Fauna Robotics (1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Assistant Professor @ NYU, Postdoc @ UC Berkeley, Research Intern @ OpenAI, CMU PhD Robotics

    3. Description: "Frontier AI for robots"

Shepherd, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that automates commercial insurance underwriting for construction and infrastructure projects using real-time operational data, raised a $42M Series B round led by Intact Private Capital, with Spark Capital and Costanoa Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $67M.

  1. Avi Banerjee & Danil Kolesnikov in SF (Co-Founders @ Marin)

    1. Role: Founding Engineers & 1st FTE @ Shepherd (4.5 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Founding Member & Product Engineer @ Ridgeline, Co-Founder @ Fable

    3. Description: "Building the best AI products for commercial insurers"

    4. Contact: Site

  2. Erica Clark in SF (Stealth)

    1. Role: SWE @ Shepherd (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Co-Founder & CTO @ Riveter (YC F24), Senior SWE @ Middesk, SWE @ Airbnb, SWE Intern @ LinkedIn

    3. Description: Co-Founder @ stealth since 4/25

Doss, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that provides inventory management software that integrates with accounting systems, raised a $55M Series B round co-led by Madrona and Premji Invest, with Intuit Ventures, Theory Ventures, General Catalyst, Contrary Capital, and Greyhound Capital also engaging.

  1. Varun Shenoy in SF (Stealth)

    1. Role: Engineering @ Doss (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Engineering @ Baseten, Research @ BAIR, Engineering @ Apple, Engineering @ U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Stanford MS CS + BS EE

    3. Description: Co-Founder @ stealth since 1/24

    4. Contact: Site

  2. Bala Pichumani in NYC (Stealth)

    1. Role: Founding GTM Hire & Growth Manager @ Doss (2 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Founding GTM Lead @ Fundamental Research Labs ($40M from Prosus, a16z, Patrick Collison), Founding Team Growth @ Kyte, Fellow @ Comma Capital, UCSB Stats

    3. Description: "Building better compliance for regulated industries" — stealth since 11/25

Highlight AI, a two-year-old startup based in Irvine, CA, whose AI system captures, models, and retrieves team context across tools in real-time to coordinate work between humans and AI agents, raised a $40M Series A round led by Khosla Ventures, with 359 Capital, General Catalyst, Valor Equity, Common Metal, Makers Fund, Arcadia, and SV Angel also contributing.

  1. Jungyoon Lim in SF (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: Engineering @ Highlight (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Founding Engineer @ Math Inc, Quantitative Research @ TPG Angelo Gordon

    3. Description: Left Math Inc in 2026 with no updates

    4. Contact: Site

  2. Wenitte Apiou in NYC (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: MTS @ Highlight (1 mo)

    2. Other Experience: ML Engineer @ Stealth Startup, Founder & CEO @ Daedalus (VC-backed no-code algo trading)

    3. Description: Left stealth startup on 10/25 with no updates

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