👋 Hi, I’m Andre and welcome to my newsletter Data Driven VC which is all about becoming a better investor with data and AI.
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Welcome to another edition of our Sunday “Resources” stream where we share our most valuable data & resources across four rotating formats:
Hottest Startups of the Month (this is today!)
Top Downloaded Resources from The Lab (“Building a Single Source of Truth for Investment Firms” here)
State of the Market (July’s multiples & benchmarks here)
Top Downloaded Resources from The Lab (“How to Gain an Edge When Everyone Uses the Same AI Model” here)
For 1. and 3., we collaborate with best-in-class partners to ensure you get the highest quality data. For 2. and 4., we leverage our ever-growing product portfolio and share selective snapshots of the most sought-after resources from The Lab.
RESOURCES OVERVIEW🛠️
✅ Join our free “AI & Automation for VC” Slack group
✅ Summarize 50+ newsletters with ChatGPT
✅ Evaluating startups with ChatGPT
✅ VC Co-Pilot for deal sourcing
✅ Top 10 Prompts for startup sourcing
✅ Top 10 Prompts for startup screening & due diligence
✅ Top 10 Prompts for deal winning & closing
✅ List of 312 family offices
✅ List of 59 pension funds
✅ List of 1513 angel investors
✅ List of 997 accelerators
Access these and more resources like our Slack community, 100+ masterclasses, automation templates, Notion templates, copilots, and more via our Annual and Premium subscriptions to The Lab.
World’s Hottest Startups in August 2026
For today’s Picks of the Month, we’re excited to partner with Harmonic. Thousands of investors from firms such as General Catalyst, Earlybird, and Pear use Harmonic every day to find and evaluate investment opportunities.
Harmonic just released X followers as a data field. This version of the Picks highlights founders followed by major investors, who often aren’t on their cap table… yet 👀
Visit harmonic.ai to catch the next batch before it’s listed.
Instead of ranking startups case by case via different growth signals, we unify all dimensions into a single metric: investor interest measured by the number of investors visiting the respective stealth/startup profiles on the Harmonic platform.
This is a unique scoring you won’t find anywhere else!
It’s about quality, not quantity: We cover the top 5 stealth founders, top 5 early-stage startups, and the top 5 growth-stage startups. Global and across industries.
This month, we find 3 key themes among trending startups:
Insurance draws multiple bets this month. Founders are building dedicated AI agents specifically for insurance workflows like quoting, claims, and customer engagement, making it a clear focus this month.
Physical and industrial systems draw AI investment. Startups on this list are applying AI directly to industrial operations and physical-systems engineering.
Stealth founders carry heavy big-tech pedigree. Backgrounds at major technology companies show up across this month's stealth profiles, spanning engineering, research, and enterprise leadership roles.
Here’s the needle in the haystack - here are the 15 most sought-after founders/startups in August 2026 you don’t want to miss👇 ranked by investor interest and page visits on the Harmonic platform.
5 Hottest Stealth Founders 🥷🏻
Experience: Co-founder & CEO of stealth drug discovery startup (miniature human neural networks for neurodegeneration & brain aging). Previously Co-Founder at AntoZero (preclinical screening for neurobiology). Senior Scientist at Stoke Therapeutics ($293M raised, RNA-targeted therapeutics).
Education: Brandeis University Ph.D. Molecular and Cellular Biology, City University of New York City College B.S. Biochemistry
Highlights: Seasoned adviser, Major research institution
Yao Zhang 🇺🇸
Experience: Previously Software Engineer at Fireworks AI ($1.8B raised, generative AI inference platform). Principal Architect at Microsoft. Director of Engineering at Ant Group. Software Engineer at Google. Postdoctoral Researcher at Argonne National Laboratory / University of Chicago.
Education: University of California, Davis Ph.D. Electrical and Computer Engineering
Highlights: Seasoned operator, Major tech company experience, Major research institution
Experience: Previously Co-Founder & CEO at Connecterra ($10.6M raised, AI platform for dairy industry, acquired 2024). Director — Microsoft Office Business Group at Microsoft (managed Western Europe Office consumer business, $700M+ revenue). 12+ years at Microsoft across multiple leadership roles.
Education: INSEAD, Lahore University of Management Sciences B.Sc. (Hons) Computer Science
Highlights: Top university, Prior VC-backed founder, Major tech company experience, $10M club
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