the frontrun blog

What investors did before the round.

deal flow research built on our own data - who tracked investors started following, which companies raised months later, and what actually works for sourcing. receipts included.

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Smack, Space and Synthefy raised today. all three were flagged first

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three rounds announced today, all flagged before the news. Smack at 162 days, Space at 20, Synthefy at 63. and on Synthefy, the flag WAS the lead investor's follow.

Aug 18, 2026 / 6 min read

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10 raises this week, flagged 120 days early.

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ten rounds announced this week, from a $40M Series A down to a $2.3M pre-seed. frontrun flagged all ten before the news, with an average lead time of 120 days.

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Uplift raised $7M from a16z, Lemma raised $2.3M, Turf got acquired by Polymarket. we flagged all three first.

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a $7M a16z seed flagged at 15 followers, a $2.3M pre-seed flagged 65 days out, and an acquisition flagged 199 days before the deal. one day, three receipts.

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Castle launched today. we flagged its founder 85 days ago.

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the person-before-the-company receipt. tracked investors started following an ex-SIG quant in may. the company account appeared in august, 3 days before launch. the flag through the founder was 85 days early.

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Preview raised $12M, Alloy Robotics raised $8M. we flagged both in february.

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two raises announced the same day, both flagged back in february. 174 days and 180 days of lead, and neither company has cracked 1,000 followers yet.

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River Markets raised $8.5M, Attestable raised $20M. we flagged both in april.

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two seed rounds announced the same day, both flagged in april. one of them we caught eleven days after the company's X account was created.

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2 launches in one day - Lasso and Markov. we flagged both first.

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launch receipts, not fundraise receipts. a checkout company flagged 31 days before it shipped while it had double-digit followers, and a YC S26 dataset company flagged 147 days early.

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10 YC S26 startups that are not in the Y Combinator startup directory yet

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the Y Combinator startup directory lists 581 companies across its live batches. these ten are in none of them, and one has four followers.

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10 startups raised this week. we flagged every one first, 111 days early on average.

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ten rounds announced this week, from a $57M Series B to a $5M seed. frontrun flagged all ten before the news, with an average lead time of 111 days.

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Gravity raised $38M. we flagged it at 36 followers, 92 days early

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we flagged Gravity at 36 followers, 92 days before the round. then the fund that led it followed the company a week before the news broke.

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Atlas raised an $11.5M seed, Pally raised $5.2M. we flagged both first.

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two seed rounds announced the same day. we flagged one 63 days early at 168 followers, and the other 56 days early, while the round was still private.

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Sapiom raised a $35M Series A, Osmo raised a $5M seed. we flagged both first.

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two AI raises announced the same day. we flagged one 180 days early at 677 followers, and the other 54 days early, off a single tracked follow.

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guide

connect claude to live deal flow - deal sourcing inside claude with frontrun's mcp (2026)

guide / 4 min read

stop doomscrolling x to find startups. connect claude directly to frontrun's mcp and your agent surfaces companies, founders, and funding in one prompt. here's the full setup.

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a16z speedrun cohort 007 - all 29 companies, before demo day

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the full a16z speedrun 007 cohort - 29 startups with founders and websites, surfaced by the follow graph weeks before demo day.

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3 launches in one day - Scalar Field, Genome Intelligence, Selfling. we flagged all three first.

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launch receipts, not fundraise receipts. an agentic trading desk flagged 44 days early, a genome company flagged 102 days early via an a16z GP's follow, and its founder's second launch flagged by Visa's head of crypto 2 days before the reveal.

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10 companies helping you own your own model

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fine-tuning, post-training, distillation, RL environments. the 10 startups building the own-your-model stack, sourced with one sentence in claude code connected to frontrun's mcp.

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Mariana Minerals raised $310M, Valar Atomics raised $1B, OLIX raised $312M, The Intelligence Company raised $7.9M. we flagged all four first.

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$1.63B of raises announced in one day. we flagged them 91 to 168 days early, and watched the lead investors hit follow before the news.

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Freehand raised $75M, Polar Browser raised $5.7M, Pangram raised a Menlo-led seed. we flagged all three first.

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three AI raises announced inside 24 hours. we flagged one 27 hours early, one 144 days early, and one 160 days early, back when it had a different name.

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46 startups we flagged before they raised (2026)

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46 rounds, 83 days of average lead time, and one company flagged at 13 followers 24 days before an $8M round.

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Enigma raised $71M and Axis Robotics raised $12M. we flagged both in March.

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two physical-ai seed rounds announced the same day. we flagged both in the same week of march, four months earlier.

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comparison

cb insights alternatives (july 2026) - 4 tools compared by job

comparison / 3 min read

cb insights is enterprise market intelligence. here's what to use if you want early sourcing signal instead of research reports - 4 alternatives compared by job.

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comparison