Dragonfly AI, a London-based innovator in AI-powered creative testing, has announced a €5.7 million (£5 million) investment to further advance its neuroscience-led technology, which takes a “fundamentally different approach to AI“.
The round was led by 24Haymarket, with participation from Guinness Ventures and Foresight. Dragonfly AI is also appointing Fiona Dent to its board of directors.
Steve King, CEO at Dragonfly AI, says:“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. 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.”
In the context of recent European funding activity in 2025 and 2026, Dragonfly AI’s round sits towards the upper end of disclosed investments in AI-driven creative and adjacent technology tools.
Other UK-based activity in the wider AI applications space includes Dragonfly (not to be confused with today’s Dragonfly AI), a London startup that raised €3 million at pre-Seed stage to develop AI software decision-making tools, and Wonder, which secured €2.6 million to build an AI-powered creative studio focused on generative visual content.
Beyond the UK, Italy-based Covision Media raised €5 million to scale its AI-enabled 3D content and product visualisation technology, illustrating capital flow into adjacent content-technology verticals.
Taken together, these rounds account for approximately €10.6 million in disclosed funding, indicating sustained but measured investment across European AI tools spanning creative testing, content generation and enterprise decision-making.
Within this landscape, Dragonfly AI’s UK-based raise stands out both for its size and its specific focus on neuroscience-led creative effectiveness, reinforcing the UK’s continued prominence in applied AI investment during this period.
Tom Haywood, partner at 24Haymarket, adds: “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.”
Founded in 2018, Dragonfly AI is a creative testing solution designed to maximise creative effectiveness. Dragonfly AI reportedly predicts how real people will see, feel, and remember creative content before it goes live. The platform helps brands optimise creative performance across digital, in-store, and omnichannel environments, combining insight across attention, emotion and memory.
By operating without reliance on training data, Dragonfly AI says their technology sidesteps the bias inherent in many generative AI models, offering a comprehensive breakdown of how creative assets will perform in real life.
As a result, the company’s platform has been adopted across multiple sectors by global brands, including Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Coca-Cola and L’Oréal, while integrating into platforms such as CreativeX.
The biological algorithm that underpins the technology was developed in the neuroscience department at Queen Mary University of London. One of its fellows, Hamit Soyel, continues in the role of chief scientist and inventor at Dragonfly AI.
Today’s investment investment will accelerate Dragonfly AI’s strategic priorities, including the rollout of new Emotion & Memory metrics, expanded video analysis across platforms, growth of Dragonfly Connect for enterprise integrations, expansion of US sales and customer success teams, and continued investment in research and product innovation.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/01/nestle-pepsico-and-loreal-among-brands-using-dragonfly-ai-as-it-raises-e5-7-million-for-predictive-ai/
