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Stealth startups flagged before they announced a raise

Stealth startups flagged before their funding was public, crypto first and then all sectors, with how many days early each was flagged and where the flags come from.

Cover image: Stealth startups flagged before they announced a raiseCover image: Stealth startups flagged before they announced a raise
By: Recent Funding.
Published: .
Updated: .
Data snapshot: .
Tags: cryptostealthapi.
On this page
  1. Where the flags come from
  2. Crypto startups flagged in stealth
  3. All sectors: how early were companies flagged?
  4. Smart follows
  5. Pull this from the API

As of October 9, 2026, 712 companies on Recent Funding carry a stealth flag, and 266 were flagged before their latest round was announced, with days_early ranging from 7 to 225 days. Only 4 of the 1790 crypto companies have a days_early figure, so crypto is a short list, not a trend.

Where the flags come from

Most flag dates, and every days_early and follow count, come from a third-party stealth-startup tracker that watches which experienced investors and founders follow new X accounts. Recent Funding's own stealth watch adds flag dates only, and only those are Recent Funding's discoveries. Values are stored as the source reported them (methodology).

FieldMeaning
flagged_atThe earliest date the company was flagged
days_earlyDays between the flag and the raise becoming public
smart_followsTracked investors and founders following the company's X account
new_follows_7dNew follows from those accounts in the last 7 days
trending_rankPosition in the trending list, when on it (1 is the top)

For 97 of the 119 companies with a figure, days_early equals the days from flagged_at to the latest round on Recent Funding; the rest were measured against a different round or date.

Crypto startups flagged in stealth

21 crypto companies have a flag date and 4 a days_early figure:

#CompanyIndustryFlaggedDays earlyLatest roundAnnounced
1Orthogonalai213undisclosed
2Cari Networkdefi168$32.5M
3MNXinfra-devtools153$6.4M
4River Marketstrading-markets117undisclosed

The crypto label is Recent Funding's classification and misses some: Gonka (decentralized compute) and StableStock (stablecoin infrastructure) are marked crypto = no, so search all sectors too.

All sectors: how early were companies flagged?

days earlyCompanies
0–2925
30–5923
60–8917
90–11917
120–14913
150–17916
180–2096
210+2

Only companies whose raise became public have days_early, so this says nothing about how often a flag leads to a raise. The largest leads:

#CompanyCryptoIndustryFlaggedDays earlyLatest roundAnnounced
1QFEXnotrading-markets225$9.5M
2Orthogonalyesai213undisclosed
3Gonkanogaming206undisclosed—
4Outcomenofintech199undisclosed
5ZeroDriftnosecurity-privacy199$10M
6Starcloudnoinfra-devtools184$250M
7MatXnotrading-markets183$500M
8Sapiomnoai-agents180$35M
9Previewnoconsumer-social175undisclosed
10Glintnodata-analytics172$580K
11Armadinno169$255M
12Brickkenno169undisclosed—
13Cari Networkyesdefi168$32.5M
14Crebitnofintech168$4M
15sazabinogaming166$8M
16Ornnnogaming162$33M
17Smack Technologiesnoother162$61M
18Naturalnopayments-stablecoins159$30M
19pumpcadenogaming156$5M
20Humanoidnorobotics-hardware155$152M
21Gimlet Labsnoai153$300M
22MNXyesinfra-devtools153$6.4M
23Weave Roboticsnorobotics-hardware153undisclosed
24smallest.ainoai150$13M
25kashnopayments-stablecoins149undisclosed

Not every flagged company is a stealth startup: the list includes established companies such as Gumroad and Upbit Global. The live list of companies still in stealth is on stealth startups.

Smart follows

890 companies have a smart-follow count, from 2 to 244 tracked accounts; 20 are crypto companies. A high count shows that many tracked accounts follow a company, not why; following is not investing.

smart followsCompanies
0–442
5–9368
10–24321
25–49121
50–9934
100+4

Pull this from the API

sort=days_early puts companies without a value last; stop reading when the field turns null (API docs):

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $RF_KEY" "https://recentfunding.com/api/v1/companies?crypto=true&sort=days_early&limit=20"

What is a stealth startup explains stealth mode, and the crypto startup API covers the other crypto endpoints.

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