Prefect has acquired Dagster Labs, combining the two leading alternatives to Apache Airflow. The deal unites Prefect's workflow execution platform with Dagster's asset-based orchestration model, creating an integrated suite for data pipelines, machine learning operations, and AI agent infrastructure. Both products will maintain separate identities, open-source licences, and roadmaps. Dagster founders Nick Schrock and Pete Hunt will serve as strategic advisors. Pricing remains unchanged for both Prefect Cloud and Dagster+. The combined company will focus on agentic automation, upstream reliability, and flexible execution. Prefect's FastMCP protocol, which has been downloaded over 92 million times in the past month, serves as the default connection layer for AI agents. Prefect has operated profitably for the past year and will continue supporting both products long-term.

Kestra raises $25M Series A to power unified orchestration for the AI era. Published on Apr 17, 2026 As seen on: Key takeaways. * Kestra secured a 25 million dollar Series A round led by RTP Global, bringing its total funding to about 36 million dollars. * The open-source orchestration platform now supports over 2 billion workflows annually and serves more than 30,000 organizations worldwide. * New capital will fund Kestra 2.0, real-time observability, agentic orchestration, and a managed cloud service for enterprise AI and data workloads. * Blue-chip users such as Apple, JPMorgan Chase, Toyota, Deutsche Telekom, BHP and Crédit Agricole already rely on Kestra for mission-critical workflows. Quick recap. Open-source orchestration platform Kestra has announced a 25 million dollar Series A funding round, led by RTP Global with participation from existing backers Alven, ISAI and Axeleo. The company disclosed the raise via an official press release and blog post, positioning the round as proof that orchestration is becoming its own core infrastructure category for data, AI and enterprise workflows. The financing lifts Kestra's total funding to roughly 36 million dollars and will accelerate its push to become the orchestration "control plane" for large enterprises. Building an orchestration control plane for AI workloads. Kestra provides a declarative, event-driven orchestration platform that lets engineers define complex workflows in YAML, unifying data pipelines, AI workflows, infrastructure automation and business processes in a single control plane. The company reports more than 26,000 GitHub stars and adoption across over 30,000 organizations, with enterprise revenue growing 25-fold in the last 18 months and over 2 billion workflows executed in 2025 alone. The 25 million dollar Series A, led by RTP Global, will fund the launch of Kestra 2.0, adding a distributed execution engine, real-time observability and more advanced "agentic" orchestration to better coordinate AI agents and microservices at scale. Capital will also back Kestra Cloud, a fully managed SaaS with usage-based pricing, and expansion of its plugin ecosystem, which already offers over 1,200 integrations for data stores, AI models and infrastructure tools. With reference customers including Apple, JPMorgan Chase, Toyota, Deutsche Telekom, BHP and Crédit Agricole, Kestra is pitching itself as the neutral fabric that sits on top of heterogeneous enterprise stacks. Why this funding round matters now? The raise lands as enterprises scramble to standardize how they schedule, monitor and govern increasingly fragmented AI, data and infrastructure workflows. Rather than relying on siloed orchestrators inside individual tools, Kestra is arguing for a single orchestration category that bridges databases, LLM providers, cloud services and internal microservices. In this context, the presence of high-profile customers and strong open-source traction signals that orchestration is moving from a developer convenience to a board-level resilience issue, especially as AI workloads become mission-critical. Competitors like Prefect, Windmill and other workflow engines are simultaneously chasing this space, but Kestra's focus on multi-domain orchestration (data, AI and infra) and its early investment in agentic capabilities could shape how enterprises architect their AI stacks over the next few years. Competitive landscape and feature comparison. Below, Kestra is compared with two close competitors in the workflow-orchestration space: Prefect and Windmill. From today's vantage point, Kestra appears to be pushing furthest into agentic orchestration and multi-domain workflows, making it attractive for enterprises that want a single fabric over AI, data and infra. Prefect remains a strong option for Python-heavy data teams who care most about simplicity and cost for pipeline-centric workloads, while Windmill offers a nimble experience for teams that want to script and ship automations quickly with less emphasis on deep AI orchestration. Sci-Tech Today's takeaway. In my experience, rounds of this size at the Series A stage are a strong signal that a niche is crystallizing into a real infrastructure category, and Kestra is clearly betting that orchestration will be the control layer of AI-native stacks. I think this is a big deal because enterprises are tired of stitching together half a dozen schedulers and custom cron jobs just to keep data and AI workflows in sync, and a unified control plane directly addresses that pain. While execution risk is real and competitors like Prefect and Windmill are not standing still, I see this funding as broadly bullish for open-source orchestration and for enterprise AI adoption, since a more reliable backbone makes it easier for risk-averse firms to green-light ambitious AI projects. Add Sci-Tech Today as a Preferred Source on Google for instant updates! Sources. Barry Elad (Senior Writer) Barry is a technology enthusiast with a passion for in-depth research on various technological topics. He meticulously gathers comprehensive statistics and facts to assist users. Barry's primary interest lies in understanding the intricacies of software and creating content that highlights its value. When not evaluating applications or programs, Barry enjoys experimenting with new healthy recipes, practicing yoga, meditating, or taking nature walks with his child. Companies List