While existing AI tools like Cursor have focused on making individual developers type faster, and solutions like Devin have attempted to take on huge development jobs in isolation, they all introduce a significant copy-paste burden. These approaches force developers to become "AI secretaries" and require them to adapt to AI's own, limited, ways of working. This threatens the decades-old Agile practices that work well for human-to-human collaboration. Founded by veteran technologists with decades of experience at Google, SwiftKey, Telefonica, Yahoo, and Qualcomm, Sagittal directly challenges these flawed approaches to AI in software development.

Sagittal's solution, called Neo, operates across the entire development lifecycle and connects all tools teams already use. Rather than opening an IDE to type code with AI assistance, teams simply assign tasks directly through their existing project management tools. Neo preserves proven collaboration methods while eliminating manual context-switching. It also enables entirely new workflows where complete tasks can be confidently delegated – even when solutions aren't perfect. Unlike most AI tools, Neo adapts to how teams already work rather than forcing them to change their established processes.

"Despite millions invested in AI development tools, most companies can't identify any measurable improvement in the metrics that actually matter," said Michael Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of Sagittal AI. "That's because current solutions force developers to become shackled to the AI, manually copying requirements, searching for context and navigating between tools. But there's also a deeper psychological barrier at play – teams are reluctant to delegate to AI due to perfectionism. We've built Neo on a critical insight: when integrated throughout the development process, even AI that delivers 80% of the solution creates exponentially more value than perfect AI restricted to a single step. With Neo, you simply assign a task just as you would to any team member, and it delivers results that can be quickly refined rather than built from scratch."

One of Neo's early pilot customers reported that tasks typically consuming 2-3 days were completed in under 15 minutes with Neo. Neo automatically gathered context from requirements, documentation, and existing code, then delivered a complete implementation including tests and documentation, all following the team's established conventions.

“The key difference is that Neo acts like a team member, not a tool," said Jose Palazon, CTO and Co-Founder. "Neo drives actual change because it can both operate within your existing workflows and enable new patterns of delegation. When you assign a task to a colleague, you don't list every file they need to modify or copy-paste specifications from multiple systems – you rely on them to navigate your shared context. Neo works the same way, adapting to your team's processes rather than demanding humans learn new workflows to accommodate AI's limitations."

"There’s a big gap between claimed AI productivity and measurable results," said John Spindler, Partner at Twin Path Ventures. "We invested in Sagittal because they've recognised what others have missed or chosen to ignore: that psychological barriers and team dynamics, not technical issues, are preventing AI adoption at scale. Their philosophy of adapting AI to human workflows rather than forcing the reverse represents the important shift enterprise software development has been waiting for to deliver real impact."

Neo has already been used successfully across various developer teams at Telefónica, and other telecoms and financial services firms in Europe, demonstrating enterprise scalability. Sagittal AI will use the funds to launch and further develop Neo, expanding capabilities to the full product development lifecycle, helping teams confidently delegate entire categories of work to AI.

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.