COMMON QUESTIONS
What is STEALTH?
STEALTH is a Venture Studio (we build and invest in our own ideas) that turns great ideas into profitable companies. We build technology solutions to solve problems and test many ideas in parallel - like a thousand at a time. When one shows great promise, we tap into our vast and talented ecosystem and mobilize a great team, spin it off into a company, and help them grow a successful business. Life’s short, so lifestyle plays aren’t our thing. We sign up customers until we have irrefutable traction (or we kill the idea). We hire impossible to recruit talent to lead our companies and will continue to build new companies whenever inspiration strikes.
What does STEALTH do?
STEALTH is a company that makes companies. We combine ideas, talent and capital to build amazing new ventures from scratch, identifying the industry, choosing the team, and guiding it through execution. We prototype, test and turn ideas into products that invigorate, empower and augment the human experience. We create MVPs to validate ideas. After validation we focus on building teams and raising funds for promising products, we stay focused on the execution and helping each of our ventures succeed. We specialize on web and mobile apps, with machine learning and social at the core of the experience.
What makes STEALTH different?
A lot, a lot, a lot. We have a slew of unique and distinct competitive advantages that allows new ideas to be tested quickly and cost effectively, and enhances the new ventures’ chance of success, which leads to better companies and investment returns for everyone involved.
Fully Loaded Startup Factory | We have all the tools, knowledge, expertise, experience and resources to build unicorns in house. And we’re loaded with top Talent who work for equity. This allows us to build extremely cheap.
Top Talent | No one can connect like we can. Our brand attracts a lot of talent applying to our company from top universities like Stanford, John Hopkins, Berkeley, Columbia, Princeton, UCLA, etc. We see a thousand applications a week and we pipe that talent out to the companies we back.
Cherry Picked | We put the vetted talent in the combine program and keep the top performers that come out of the program for ourselves.
End-to-End Ecosystem | We share resources; everything’s under one roof. We have Built-In Customers with access to thousands of users for testing and initial scaling. Our companies also share a customer base to cross-sell their products.
Super-Incubator Infrastructure | Our assembly line process produces companies at rapid production at scale. Our studio provides key infrastructure and services which allows the startup teams to focus on core product development and go to market.
Plug n’ Play Design | Everything is interconnected. We build our companies in parts and pieces and then connect them like Legos. Parts, like an algorithm or code for example, can be Interchangeable for other companies. We can also move talent around to where we need it most in our incubator to ensure success.
Instant Profit Model | Our business model is always going to be different - we’re not going to hoard users and try to monetize their personal information. Instead we offer superior products that our clients happily pay for. Healthy margins and superior quality at scale is how we design the business models for each of these companies.
Grow or Die Mentality | Life’s short, so lifestyle plays aren’t our thing. We sign up customers until we have irrefutable traction or we kill the idea. Our companies either grow with us or get dropped.
Legacy Businesses | We don’t play the markup game. We’re in it for the long term; we’re building our own legacy businesses, companies that can be passed down for generations to come.
PE Model | We’re a VC that operates a lot more like Private Equity. Unlike VC’s that hold a minority stake in a company, we always maintain a controlling interest in all the companies. Where VC’s look for quick growth and exit strategies, we look into scaling companies to improve efficiency and revenue. And we have our footprints on everything; in every industry.
Balanced Portfolio | Deep tech (AI, Computing, Autonomy) and Consumer tech (VR/AR, Education/Work, Food) have different risk/reward and time to exit profiles, combining the two creates a balanced portfolio.
One Team Philosophy | Everyone’s vested in the same mission and incentivized for their contributions across all startups.
Built to Scale | Because we’re virtual, there’s no limit to how many startups we can onboard. Our Platform allows Ideas to pivot, fork off and multiply.
Virtual Platform | Because we’re Virtual, there’s no limit to how many startups we can onboard. Our Platform allows Ideas to pivot, fork off and multiply.
Self Funded | We’re always David going up against Goliath. We’re self-funded; we’ve done all of this without ever raising any capital and don’t plan to. We’re constantly facing off against giants with deep pockets, going toe to toe with companies that have literally tens and hundreds of millions in funding a year. But we like controlling our own fate and would much rather spend our time selling our products.
Low Cost | We’re extremely f*cking good, smart and creative...and we can build really cheap. No! Like, really cheap. Our unique company design and infrastructure helps us build, launch and grow these businesses at a fraction of the cost.
Arbitrage Moonshots | Our system minimizes risks and gives our companies the best chances of success allowing us to diversify the portfolio with moonshots with astronomical ROI potential.
Proven System | Our system works, the first two companies (Forkaia® and Insolar) out of the venture studio have multi-million dollar valuations.
We invest in AI, ML, RCA, BCI, AR/VR, the internet of things, health and wellness, the future of work and education, Social, Data Science and Cloning, and Green and Wireless Energy.
We know if it’s going to be good before we ever build it | Ideas are crowdsourced, cross fertilized and proxied to ensure best outcome. Then we put it in the Idea lab to see if it has legs. If there’s enough demand to build or use the product, we’ll build it.
Natural Selection Philosophy | We fill the funnel with a large number of companies (1000 at a time) and move them through quickly and in a way only the strongest survive thus lowering risk and increasing the probability of a good outcome and return.
We Only Fund Winners | STEALTH has an internal fundable score that calculates the quickest and highest ROI potential with lowest risk and most milestones achieved for each company. Go big or go home.
Fully Automated Enterprise: Open 24/7 | We’re using the smartest humans to automate our hardest tasks so the next generation of STEALTH companies will be built around the clock by code and machines. We’re moving towards zero employees, no humans needed.
What’s STEALTH’s mission?
Working at STEALTH is like going on a Mission to find a secret and along the way we'll experiment with a ton of projects but our main goal is to crack the ASI code (Artificial Super Intelligence). With the help of this level of digital intelligence, we can solve planetary scale problems that we don’t have a solution for today. It will also free us from repetitive tasks and soul crushing work (let’s leave that to the robots) and hopefully lead us to a new, modern renaissance era.
Our Platform allows Ideas to pivot, fork off and multiply. ‘Fork’ means a process that creates a copy of itself which is precisely what we’re doing with our incubator using AI at scale. We see developing commercial products as one of the ways to make sure we have enough funding to succeed. We make a product, sell it and reinvest the proceeds back into the company; commercializing Idea Lab technologies helps us pay for our ongoing AI research. What we’re doing at STEALTH will result in products, tools and services that are hard to imagine today.
Is STEALTH going to eliminate jobs?
Yes but we’re creating some new jobs as well. But it’ll require major retraining and constant upskilling and reskilling to adapt to changes in job requirements. Anything that’s routine, repetitive or can be given instructions will be automated and done by machines. But these machines will need human oversight, maintenance, and development so there will be new jobs like AI trainers, AI ethicists, data analysts, and AI system maintainers. Also AI will give a massive boost in areas like Entrepreneurship and Innovation where AI can fuel the growth of startups, stimulating economic activity and creating jobs in the tech sector. STEALTH is a perfect example of this. It took us 18 months to build our first company, that was 7 years ago…now we’re down to one week and in the future with improvements in AI tools and computing, it will only take a few minutes to build and launch a successful venture from scratch. Imagination is the only limitation.
What kind of Business do you build and invest in?
We have clear and defined investment heuristics and strategy. We are a product-centric, generalist fund that invests in growth-oriented businesses across a diverse set of industries. We look for businesses positioned to succeed in verticals with large addressable markets that have demonstrated quantifiable financial and operational fundamentals, including a scaling customer base, early product-market fit, and hopefully some real revenue growth.
What Sectors do you invest in?
Our focus is on web and mobile apps, with machine learning and social at the core of the experience. We like tech startups in AI, ML, RCA, BCI, AR/VR, the internet of things, health and wellness, the future of work and education, Social, Data Science and Cloning, and Green and Wireless Energy.
What Regions do you invest in?
We invest anywhere in the US.
What stage are STEALTH startups in?
STEALTH’s enterprises are in various stages of development, from projects in the initial research and development phase, to full blown companies that have spun out.
How do you decide what to build?
We know if it’s going to be good before we ever build it. Ideas are crowdsourced, cross fertilized and proxied to ensure best outcome. Then we put it in the Idea lab to see if it has legs. If there’s enough demand to build or use the product, we’ll build it.
What’s the Fund’s Philosophy?
We have a Natural Selection philosophy where we fill the funnel with a large number of companies (1000 at a time) and move them through quickly and in a way only the strongest survive thus lowering risk and increasing the probability of a good outcome and return.
How is the Portfolio constructed?
We balance the portfolio by mixing a blend of Deep tech (AI, Computing, Autonomy) and Consumer tech (VR/AR, Education/Work, Food) since they both have different risk/reward and time to exit profiles.
Who Do You Fund?
STEALTH has an internal fundable score that calculates the quickest and highest ROI potential with lowest risk and most milestones achieved for each company. And we’ll continue to fund the winners.
How can I become a co-founder?
By having raw, intellectual horsepower. You don’t need to have an idea; we’re seeking talent and hunger. We’re serial entrepreneurs with a high success rate. We’ll leverage our experience and platform to set you up as a CEO of a successful company.
How can you help me succeed?
We serve as a hands-on co-founder, bringing advanced expertise in technology, web and mobile development, branding, strategy and business development, exclusive investor networks, UX, UI, and growth hacking. We’ll work closely with entrepreneurs, providing them vetted ideas and a proven playbook for execution. We help find the right product/market fit, and leverage human and financial capital. And we assist with all those time-consuming tasks, freeing them to focus on creating sustainable businesses.
What is a Venture Studio?
A venture studio is an organization whose aim is to repeatedly build companies. Thanks to its infrastructure and resources, venture studios increase a startup’s chance of success and optimize its creation and growth. The difference between incubators/accelerators and venture studios is the vested human capital involved around an idea. At the core of the Venture Studio model are the dedicated teams helping business ideas develop into beautiful products and successful companies. Richard Branson, Meg Whitman, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Brad Feld and Scott Dorsey have all launched their own studios. And companies like Instagram, Twitter, Slack, Trello and Flickr have all emerged from Venture Studios creating some $100 billion in Value.