Today’s Watchlist Edition marks the end of Q1 2026.
In celebration, we will discuss a few risers and fallers from the January and February editions, before ending with this month’s selection of leading startups.
Starcloud, the space tech company aiming to launch data centers into orbit, is seeking FCC approval to launch up to 88,000 satellites into orbit. The FCC accepted the filing for review on March 13th. For context, Starcloud previously tested an NVIDIA H100 GPU on a satellite in GPU, becoming the first company to train an AI model in space. Starcloud founder and CEO Philip Johnston also sat with key investors from Sequoia Capital, Pat Grady (head of Sequoia alongside Alfred Lin) and Sonya Huang (co-led Sequoia’s OpenAI investment with Grady and Lin), for a 45 minute conversation on why space will become the primary location for AI compute infrastructure within the next decade. The last few months have been generous to Starcloud, and they are quickly rising up the ranks after being named to Watchlist in January.
An incognito AI model was getting tons of attention on OpenRouter roughly two weeks ago, and there was speculation amongst developers that the model was DeepSeek testing its next big launch. A week later, on March 18th, the model was revealed to be from Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone company. The model initially surfaced on March 11th under the name “Hunter Alpha” and was described by OpenRouter as a stealth model. Xiaomi’s AI team is run by Luo Fuli, a former DeepSeek researcher. The significance of this event was less about the model and more about the growing influence of OpenRouter in foundational model discovery.
Perhaps the fastest faller in recent startup history. It started with a viral Substack post with some serious allegations about fraudulent business practices at Delve, the Insight and Y-Combinator backed compliance startup, and things quickly spiraled into a media storm. A former customer alleged that Delve was not actually helping companies clear security certifications - most notably SOC 2 - but rather providing customers with fake evidence, rubber stamping its own reports, and avoiding independent auditing. To add insult to injury, Insight Partners, the $90B venture firm that led Delve’s $32M Series A, deleted an article on their website celebrating their investment into the company.
A very mild inconvenience compared to Delve’s more serious troubles; yet, a threat nonetheless. Fundamental Research Lab’s most potent product to date, Shortcut, the AI agent that creates financial spreadsheet models, is poised to hit market headwinds post-Claude. According to co-founder Nico Christie’s LinkedIn, however, Shortcut is growing quickly, 50% month-over-month. Will be something to watch going forward.
Company Overview: Novig is building a commission free sports prediction market that allows users to trade against one another. It operates as a legal sweepstakes-based platform in over 40 U.S. states with a focus on providing better odds for gamblers. The company most recently raised a $75M Series B led by Pantera which closed at a $500M valuation in February. Prior to that, their $18M Series A was led by Forerunner in August 2025.
Founders: Jacob Fortinsky - Novig founder and CEO, Harvard graduate and Y-Combinator Summer 2022; Kelechi Ukah - Novig founder and CTO, Harvard graduate and Y-Combinator Summer 2022, Jane Street intern
Investors: Pantera, Forerunner
Amount Raised: $105M+
Headquarters: New York, NY
Company Overview: Savvy Wealth is building the most advisor-centric platform in wealth management, enhanced by artificial intelligence. The company claims to save up to 19 hours a week for wealth advisors by eliminating manual workflows, leading to 30% more client facing time. In July 2025, Savvy raised a $72M Series B led by Industry Ventures with participation from Thrive Capital, Canvas Ventures, and The House Fund.
Founders: Ritik Malhotra - founder and CEO of Savvy Wealth, 2x exited founder - Y-Combinator Summer 2012 (Streem, acquired by Box), Y-Combinator Winter 2019 (Elph, acquired by Brex)
Investors: Industry Ventures, Canvas Ventures
Amount Raised: $100M+
Headquarters: New York, NY
Company Overview: Somos Internet is building a vertically integrated Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Latin America, starting with Colombia and now launching in Mexico through a partnership with Mercado Libre. The Somos network stack consists of fiber, hardware, and software, and this trifecta unlocks world leading connectivity at a lower cost than other ISPs. The $18M Series A round was led by Union Square Ventures and Ribbit Capital.
Founders: Forrest Heath - Somos Internet founder and CEO, Y-Combinator Winter 2021 founder, IDEO Co-Lab Design Fellow
Investors: Union Square Ventures, Ribbit Capital
Amount Raised: $40M+ (Series A stage)
Headquarters: Medellin, Colombia
Company Overview: Rainmaker is building an end-to-end cloud seeding system to make it rain on demand, with the mission of ending water scarcity. The company’s weather radar and atmospheric sensing system is named Eden, and it contains LiDAR, infrared cameras, and temperature/pressure sensors. Eden is used to target clouds and measure the effectiveness of Rainmaker’s cloud seeding efforts, while Elijah, a weather resistant drone, is used to distribute seeds in the clouds to induce precipitation. The process is monitored by a software system known as Prophet. Rainmaker is licensed and regulated in Utah, Colorado, and parts of California, Texas and the Middle East.
Founders: Augustus Doricko - Rainmaker founder and CEO, UC Berkeley dropout, former founder of Terra Seco Solutions
Investors: Lowercarbon Capital, Navil Ravikant
Amount Raised: $31M+
Headquarters: El Segundo, California
Company Overview: Natilus is developing next generation aircraft. There is a global shortfall of 15,000+ planes, and Natilus wants to address the supply gap while bringing a new, more efficient design to market. The blended wing body leverages improved aerodynamics, cuts fuel usage by 30%, and has 570 commercial pre-orders worth an aggregate $24B from airlines around the world. Commercial deliveries are expected to begin in the early 2030s. The company raised a $28M Series A in February, led by Draper Associates with participation from Soma Capital, Flexport, and Liquid 2 VC.
Founders: Aleksey Matyushev - Natilus founder and CEO, UC Berkeley dropout, former founder of Terra Seco Solutions
Investors: Draper Associates
Amount Raised: $28M+
Headquarters: San Diego, California
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