The explosion of software options in recent years has created a paradox of choice for companies. With thousands of tools available, finding the right fit is no easy feat. London-based Dragonfly challenges this by assembling the world’s largest catalogue of software products (over 250,000 to date) and powering a conversational AI that delivers tailored tech stack recommendations in moments.
Today, the startup has secured £2.6 million in a pre-seed funding round to bring order to the wildly expanding software market. Led by Episode 1 with participation from Dreamcraft, Portfolio Ventures, and angels including QuantumBlack CTO Sam Bourton and Bolt CEO Markus Villig, this fresh capital will help Dragonfly accelerate its vision: making complex software decisions faster and more accessible for businesses of all sizes.
The challenge of selecting the right technology to grow the business
The startup’s founders, Sean King and Sven Sabas, launched Dragonfly in late 2024 after witnessing firsthand the critical role software selection played in their previous ventures at Zego.
Sabas told TFN: “Tech is moving at exponential speed. It has never been easier to build. More and more tools are becoming available, and more information is available about these tools, which makes it harder to decide which ones to use. There is an enormous opportunity, but business operations move slowly, and given that tech has moved very fast, there is limited know-how around how to get the most out of the newer technology.
The talent with this skill set is really scarce and expensive. This creates a missed opportunity. We want to help bridge the gap between potential and where businesses are – we want to help them adopt modern tools and technologies.”
Dragonfly uses a proprietary ‘digital fingerprinting’ technology to map a company’s current software environment, then overlays this with a vast knowledge graph enriched with product details, market sentiment, integration profiles, and compliance data. This platform can process both straightforward queries, such as finding suitable project management solutions, and complex enterprise needs involving security, data flow, and regulatory compliance.
Sabas elaborated further, “We are building a recommender system to help businesses transform their tech stack and adopt modern tooling, which also helps them throughout this journey to ensure they get the maximum out of all the tools within their organisations.”
With the public launch of its conversational AI tool, Dragonfly sets itself apart from static marketplaces cluttered with outdated information. Later this year, the company plans to roll out enterprise-grade capabilities to support companies in managing and evolving their technology stacks dynamically.
Speaking about competition, Sabas says, “This depends on how one would look at the market. On one side, we are automating the role of a solutions architect, so one could consider the digital and technology consulting firms, Accenture, BCG Platinion, McKinsey, and QuantumBlack, as our most direct competitors.
On the other side, there are existing data providers such as G2, Capterra and Gartner, who give businesses information on software tools. On top of that, indirectly, we are also competing with search providers such as Google and ChatGPT.”
What’s next?
Growing steadily, Dragonfly has attracted talent from Zego, Peppy, and Permutive, and plans to reinvest funding to deepen its data assets and expand core features. “
Hector Mason, General Partner at Episode 1, says: “Until Dragonfly, gathering enough context about software tools to truly understand their capabilities and whether they fit seamlessly within an existing stack was impossible. By solving this critical problem, made even more urgent with the rapid adoption of AI, Dragonfly has the potential to make every company on the planet more effective in how they operate.”
Sabas concludes, “We want to build out Dragonfly’s core technologies such that we can democratise access to the expertise of a solutions architect and help any business, big or small, benefit from the generational shift that AI has brought. Ultimately, we want to become the go-to technology companion for businesses and professionals.”
