Dragonfly AI raises £5m to predict ad impact using neuroscience
This article covers Dragonfly AI, a martech startup, which has closed a growth funding round of £5m led by 24Haymarket with participation from Guinness Ventures, Foresight and other investors, and has appointed Fiona Dent to its board. The funding will support product development, US expansion and wider commercial roll-out of its neuroscience-led creative testing technology, targeting advertisers and global consumer brands and building on research from Queen Mary University of London.
Dragonfly AI, a martech startup, has closed a growth funding round of £5m led by 24Haymarket, with participation from Guinness Ventures, Foresight and other investors. The money will fund product development, US expansion and further commercial roll-out of its neuroscience-led creative testing technology, and comes alongside the appointment of Fiona Dent to the company board.
Why it matters
The deal is notable for two reasons. First, it underlines continued investor appetite for tools that promise more measurable returns from advertising spend, with global consumer brands already using Dragonfly’s platform. Second, the company’s core technology traces back to academic research at Queen Mary University of London, highlighting the role UK universities play in seeding commercial AI innovation.
Dragonfly says its approach is distinct from data-trained generative models: the firm’s patented biological algorithm aims to predict how creative assets will perform without relying on large labelled datasets, a feature the company argues reduces certain forms of bias. Clients named by the company include Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Coca-Cola and L’Oréal, and the platform integrates with creative workflow tools such as CreativeX.
Inside the product
Dragonfly AI builds tools to forecast attention, emotion and memory for adverts and creative assets. Planned product work funded by the round includes new Emotion & Memory metrics, expanded video analysis, and the growth of Dragonfly Connect for enterprise integrations. The company also intends to beef up US sales and customer success teams.
The underlying algorithm originated in Queen Mary University of London’s neuroscience department. Hamit Soyel, one of the original fellows, remains chief scientist and inventor at Dragonfly AI, a continuity the company says supports ongoing research-led development.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by 24Haymarket, described in the announcement as an early-stage investor with experience backing enterprise SaaS and AI-enabled technology businesses. Other named participants include Guinness Ventures and Foresight.
In the announcement, Tom Haywood, partner at 24Haymarket, said:
Dragonfly AI has built an exceptionally easy-to-use, yet highly capable platform, underpinned by a world-class algorithm developed at Queen Mary University of London, and is already trusted by an impressive roster of clients. The business continued to grow materially during our investment process, reinforcing our conviction that Dragonfly AI has the foundations to scale into a category-defining business.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Steve King, chief executive officer at Dragonfly AI, said:
This investment in Dragonfly AI is a strong endorsement of our science-led approach and performance-tested technology, already trusted by some of the world’s biggest FMCG brands[1]. We help more than 70 global brands ensure their advertising is noticed and remembered, and this funding allows us to deepen our impact for customers, improve the effectiveness of their spend, and bring our algorithms directly into the tools and workflows they use every day.
The company also announced the appointment of Fiona Dent to its board. Dent has held senior global leadership roles, including at Time Inc., where she led digital transformation and commercial initiatives. The board addition is framed as strengthening governance and operational experience as Dragonfly expands internationally.
The bigger picture
Dragonfly’s raise sits at the intersection of two ongoing trends in martech and AI: demand from advertisers for clearer measurement of creative effectiveness, and growing interest in AI approaches that emphasise scientific or theory-driven models rather than purely data-hungry, pattern-based systems. The deal also illustrates a continuing pipeline from UK university research into commercial startups.
For the UK and European ecosystem, the round is another example of investors putting capital behind research-originated AI companies that aim to serve large enterprise buyers — and an indicator that transatlantic expansion remains a priority for UK-founded martech companies.
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