Marco Squarci

Founder | Investor ⌘N 👻

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

40 days ago, @SpecterHQ flagged that a TCV partner was looking at @UseCorgi .

Today, Corgi announced a $160M Series B led by TCV at a $1.3B valuation.

We've tracked Corgi since their founders went stealth in May 2024. Every traction inflection. The $44M ARR signal. The investor activity that preceded their Series A - and then again, the interest signal that preceded today's $160M round, 40 days early.

7 signals. 24 months. 2 predictions. 1 outcome.

Huge congrats to @nico_laqua and @emily_yuan_ on building one of the most-tracked stories in our index - and to the investors who backed conviction early!

[nico laqua @nico_laqua]

Today, @UseCorgi is announcing a $160M Series B at a $1.3B valuation led by TCV.

This new round of funding will help us scale what we've built and expand into new verticals including trucking, payroll, and small business.

This follows our $108M Series A that we announced 16 weeks ago, bringing total funding to over $268M.

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

You all saw it on Specter first 😎 congrats to the @prior_labs team!

[Prior Labs @prior_labs]

Today we announced a major milestone: @prior_labs has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by @SAP, scaling Prior Labs to become the next frontier AI lab for structured data. 🧵

[Specter @SpecterHQ]

You can now wire Specter's private market data directly into Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini with our new MCP Server 🔌

We just launched 14 dedicated tools to bring deeper, faster context directly into your AI workflows.

Link to the full setup guide and use cases in the comments 👇

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

Acquirers are finally asking the question the best VCs figured out years ago.

Score the whole team. Every engineer, every operator, every early hire.

Last week I talked to a corp dev team at one of the largest tech companies in the world. Their M&A pipeline was entirely reactive. They'd see a target in the press, scramble to evaluate, and lose to faster buyers.

So they're rebuilding from scratch. And the first thing they asked for wasn't company financials or market maps. It was people data. Talent scoring across every employee.

Where did the engineers come from? What's the team's technical depth? Who joined pre-seed vs. after the Series A announcement?

This used to be a VC-only conversation. Now corp dev teams, growth equity, family offices doing direct deals, and investment banks are all asking for the same thing.

The pattern keeps repeating: every serious buyer eventually reaches the same conclusion. The company is the team. If you can't evaluate the team systematically, you're reading pitch decks and hoping for the best.

We track 500M+ people at @SpecterHQ because the ones building the best pipelines don't start with company lists. They start with people.

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

When the interface collapses to a prompt, the only competitive edge is what's behind it.

For funds, this plays out fast. Analysts already run AI assistants. In 18 months they'll run agents, querying your data stack directly. The dashboard won't matter. The data model will.

Most VC firms have spent 5 years optimizing the wrong layer.

Open your sourcing stack. Ask: if every interface disappeared tomorrow, what would your AI agent actually have access to? That's your real moat, or the gap in it.

[Rabi Shanker Guha @rabi_guha]

notice something?

Linear, PostHog, Attio - all shipped the same thing in the last few weeks. Homepage is a chat bar - not a dashboard.

This is the SaaS industry quietly admitting that traditional UI doesn't work anymore. Every user is different. One homepage can't serve them all.

The playbook is shifting:
→ expose your core APIs
→ connect an agentic layer
→ let users use software the way they want

SaaS became chat. Chat will become Generative UI - the agent won't just reply in text, it will compose the interface itself.

We're closer than people think.

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

@paolo_scales COWORK

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

@yanndine Claude

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

@yanndine N8N

[etn. @etnshow]

.@chichikid & @marcosqrc on the universal data-driven transition hitting PE:

“The shift to being data-driven that defined VC is now happening to more traditional verticals like private equity.”

“We are seeing a much bigger opportunity now that traditional investors are reaching out to us for the @SpecterHQ terminal.”

[etn. @etnshow]

.@specter Co-Founders (@chichikid , @marcosqrc) on scouting talent:

“We look for people who have done something very special. They might be a little weird, but they are amazing individuals.”

“We hire for traits and attitudes. If they have those, they can learn the rest. That is indicative of potential future success.”

“Hiring for a network is even worse than hiring for experience. Always look for the attitude first.”

[etn. @etnshow]

350 VC and PE firms use Specter (@SpecterHQ).

What is it?

@chichikid (Co-Founder): "Real-time intelligence about private companies and startups. Signals about what's happening with companies, the people behind them, and the investors backing them."

6 years in the market. Fully bootstrapped.

"We've been growing very consciously and steadily."

No funding. 350 clients. That's how you build.

[etn. @etnshow]

"You are one of the fastest growing tech show in Europe, what do you talk about?"

- this about sums it up

[etn. @etnshow]

When you start a company you have no idea how big it can get.

The founders of Specter (@SpecterHQ) Marco (@marcosqrc) and Dominik (@chichikid) are realising 5 years in just how big the opportunity really is.

Specter is the live data and AI-driven analysis company for private markets.

"If you look at some of the incumbents like Preqin or Pitchbook, you know Pitchbook is a $750M ARR company"

They want to build a huge company so naturally they're hiring like crazy right now and shipping faster.

[Luke Knight @lukeknight]

Live with Marco Squarci @marcosqrc and Dominik Vacikar @chichikid Founder of Specter @SpecterHQ

[etn. @etnshow]

Most of the news were stale.. before @SpecterHQ ✨

Thanks for coming on @marcosqrc!

[etn. @etnshow]

BREAKING: Marco Squarci (@marcosqrc) , Co-Founder & CEO of Specter (@SpecterHQ) is joining the etn. boys tomorrow at 12:00 GMT.

[Dominik Vacikar @chichikid]

🚀 Today, we’re launching: Real-Time Revenue Tracking.

For the first time, you can see private-market revenue updates as they happen!

Follow @SpecterHQ for more.

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

@simonkubica @alloyapp ALLOY 🙏

[Marco Squarci @marcosqrc]

@nickbakeddesign what’s the name of the color?

[Dominik Vacikar @chichikid]

🚨🍫 Ferrero is minting €50M EVERY DAY. A 31% sugar-rush rocketed sales to €18.4B FY 24—5× @RevolutApp & 20× @StarlingBank 🔥. Giovanni Ferrero just dropped $3.1B on WK Kellogg, pushing revenue past $20B.

Want a full breakdown of Ferrero’s M&A? Drop a “🍫” & I’ll DM the playbook. #Nutella #Ferrero