Dragonfly

At Dragonfly, we’re obsessed with simplifying complexity.   But we keep hearing this from teams: “Our stack is out of control.” So we’re asking, how many tools are in your tech stack right now? 🕵 #askdragonfly

We’re thrilled to share some big news 📢! We’re beyond excited to officially announce that Orian English is advising the Dragonfly team on GTM strategy & execution. Orian has been in our corner for a few months now, and her guidance on building and scaling a world-class GTM motion has been invaluable. To say she knows this space is an understatement. She’s seen it from every angle: first as a technology buyer, then on the other side in sales and partnerships. Today, she’s a GTM leader at OpenAI, helping enterprises across EMEA transform their operations with AI. Before that, she spent nearly a decade at Google, where she most recently led a Data & AI sales team for Google Cloud — which is also where she and Sean King first crossed paths. In her words: "I've spent my career in go-to-market functions across the tech stack, from advertising automation to cloud infrastructure. The goal was always to help organisations modernise so they can grow faster, operate leaner, and make better decisions. And across industries, I have consistently seen the same thing: companies struggling to make clear, outcome-driven choices about their tech. And now as the entire landscape shifts around AI, the challenge is increasingly acute. Sean King, Sven Sabas and the Dragonfly team are so well equipped to tackle this problem, and it has been a privilege to have a front row seat so far. There is so much opportunity ahead, and I am very excited to be a partner to Dragonfly as they build for scale and bring their solution to market." She’s been a champion for our mission from the start, and we’re lucky to have her!

October '25 Team Offsite - Completed ✅! Last week the Dragonfly team came together to the usual stomping ground near London Bridge for our regular in-person offsite to pause, reflect, and celebrate. We have had a whirlwind of past 2 weeks - our very first product launch, pre-seed fundraise announcement and all the media that followed it (with more in the works 👀). Thank you so much to everyone who have supported us on the journey and especially the early testers of our product. Inadvertently, our co-founder Sean King noticed during the offsite that we had hit 200 (!) users on our platform. Goes without saying that we took the moment to celebrate with some well-deserved bubbly. This officially closes "Chapter I" of the Dragonfly story. But this is just the beginning. We are now heads-down writing "Chapter II" of our story and building of the next iteration of our platform. We can't share the details just yet, but we are working on something very exciting. #BuildInPublic #Dragonfly #StartupLife #TeamOffsite #Milestone #SaaS #Launch

The most anticipated AI report of the year, the State of AI Report 2025, was released last week by Air Street Press. It is a dense and insightful look at the last 12 months, and the pace of progress is relentless. For businesses, the message is clear: the era of AI experimentation is over, and the era of scaled deployment is here. First, the momentum is undeniable: ⦿ AI is Now Mainstream: Paid adoption has hit nearly 44% of businesses, and average contract values have surged from $39k to $530k as companies move from pilots to scaled deployments. ⦿ The Business Case is Proven: AI-native companies are growing 1.5x faster than top SaaS benchmarks, while the capability-to-cost ratio for leading models doubles every 3-6 months ⦿ Procurement is API-First: Most businesses are procuring AI through APIs, leading to heavy reliance on a few dominant providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. But critical challenges remain: ⦿ Entry-Level Jobs are Shrinking: A decline in entry-level hiring for AI-exposed roles (like software and support) is creating a significant challenge for the future talent pipeline. ⦿ Security Remains a Major Blindspot: The shift to AI agents is outpacing security standards, with prompt injection being a key vulnerability actively exploited for sophisticated cyberattacks. ⦿ Measurement and safety gaps are widening: Key benchmarks are proving unreliable, and the external AI safety ecosystem is under-resourced compared to the labs it aims to hold accountable. Momentum is undeniable, but so are the growing pains. At Dragonfly we are seeing AI agents and models become genuinely useful, but the industry has work to do on reliability, safety, and managing the economic impact. A huge thanks to all the authors - Nathan Benaich, Zeke Gillman, Nell Norman and Ryan Tovcimak and the rest of Air Street Capital. For the full report, see comments below.

Announcement 🚨! Exciting day for Dragonfly family as we are announcing to the public that Sam Bourton is joining our team as an advisor! Sam is an industry veteran having co-founded QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, the pioneering data science consultancy that became McKinsey & Company 1,500-person global AI practice following its acquisition in 2016. As a Tech Fellow Partner at McKinsey & Company, he founded and led QuantumBlack Labs, building a team of 250 scientists, engineers, and designers delivering AI solutions across hundreds of global clients. Now he is joining Dragonfly's Board of Advisors to share his experience, know-how and help us build a technology companion he wished he had. In his words: "I first met Sean and Sven after having spent three days with 150 CIOs and CTOs, witnessing firsthand the mounting complexity of the modern tech and data landscape. The explosion of GenAI and agentic systems has amplified the problem - leaders face a firehose of requests for new AI tools, with a thousand flowers blooming across their organisations, each demanding attention and resources. Taking stock of their existing tech stack, evaluating options, and managing security, dependencies, and integrations has never been harder. What struck me about Sean and Sven wasn't just their willingness to tackle this problem head-on; it was their embrace of its full complexity. Their depth of thinking and meticulous attention to detail set them apart. They're not looking for quick fixes or superficial solutions; they're building something fundamental. I'm excited to watch Dragonfly's vision unfold - this is exactly what our industry needs." Welcome to Dragonfly, Sam!

Awesome article on Dragonfly from our friends at Startup Estonia! We are proud of our Estonian 🇪🇪 connection and look forward to working with the local start-up and business community.

Crazy times 😅 for team Dragonfly! It has been a whirlwind of the last couple of days, but we are super grateful for all the support. It might take a while for us to get back to everyone, but the overwhelming feedback has only increased our conviction that we are on the right track! Special thanks goes to the media community, who helped to spread the word: Tech Funding News (Sofia Chesnokova), EU-Startups, foundME, Geenius Meedia, Startup Estonia, Seed Europe, Vestbee, Startup Newswire, The Founderstory and many many more. We are building a product for you, professionals and digital-first businesses, who want to adopt modern, AI-native tooling. Yesterday, we publicly launched a small part of our platform, but there is a lot more to share. In the background, we continue working with 40+ partners across the range of industries, sizes and geographies to help bring the tech ecosystem closer together. We want to help every one of you on this transformation journey. If this resonates with your pains, reach out! We are particularly keen to work with: 🔸 End-users - businesses and professionals trying to adopt AI-native tools. Feeling overwhelmed?  We got you! 🔸 Vendors - software companies building new tools. Need help with bringing customers on board? We are here to help. 🔸 Service sector - are you advising, consulting, overseeing clients or portfolios of companies? We can help you scale. Technology is advancing at an exponential rate, but business operations are slower to adapt. We are here to bridge the gap!

Big congrats to Sean King, Sven Sabas and the Dragonfly team on announcing their $3.5M pre-seed round. And for taking their Automated Solution Architect vision from concept to reality. I’m thrilled that Dreamcraft Ventures (kudos Mads Esmarch Hansen) is joining this journey alongside friends from Episode 1 Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, Opus11 VC, and an impressive lineup of angels. 🔥 Dragonfly’s recommender engine aims to make technology selection intelligent, explainable, and fast. Essentially becoming an automated solution architect that sits at the intersection of AI reasoning, data aggregation, and product understanding. 🧠 The potential here goes far beyond the software recommendations themselves. Huge respect to the founders for their clarity of vision and the depth of execution already visible in the beta. 💡 Read more about their journey so far and where they're headed on the website 👇🏻 (link in comments)

Exciting day — Dragonfly just launched its public beta! 🚀 Dragonfly is building the world’s first AI-powered software discovery platform, helping teams instantly find and evaluate the right tools from a database of 250,000+ products. What once took months of research now happens in seconds through smart, contextual recommendations. Go check it out now at: https://askdragonfly.com/ Founded by Sean King (ex-Zego, Permutive) and Sven Sabas (ex-Zego, Peppy), this exceptional team combines deep product, data, and industry expertise. It’s been an absolute joy working with them. Finally, great to be in the best company with Episode 1 Ventures and Portfolio Ventures on their $3.4M pre-seed round!

Fantastic coverage today by Sofia Chesnokova and the Tech Funding News team on our £2.6M Pre-Seed and the launch of Dragonfly! Our launch today was possible thanks to our investors, partners, and advisors: Episode 1 Ventures, Hector Mason Portfolio Ventures Will Brooks Will Martin Dreamcraft Ventures Mads Esmarch Hansen Daniel Nyvang-Székely Mariussen Sam Bourton Orian English Matt Taylor Martin Gould Markus Villig Mihkel Välja Read the Full Story: https://lnkd.in/g_d686hA #AskDragonfly #SaaS #AI #Startup #TechStack