Dagster Labs

Company behind Dagster and Dagster+.

Being acquired

2026-07-13: Prefect announced it is acquiring Dagster Labs, ending “nearly a decade of competition” (founder letter on dagster.io). About 40 Dagster employees join Prefect; founder Nick Schrock departs after eight years. Dagster OSS gets active development; Dagster+ keeps its brand and contracts.

• Founder: Nick Schrock (creator of Dagster). CEO: Pete Hunt (signs the 2026-07-13 letter as CEO of Dagster Labs; Prefect credits him with building the commercial business). Prefect and Dagster were both founded in 2018 (Prefect announcement).
• Funding: Elementl (Dagster Labs’ earlier name) announced a USD 33M Series B led by Georgian with 8VC, Human Capital and Hanover, and existing investors Sequoia, Index, Amplify and Slow (dagster.io page dated 2023-05-24). Later funding and HQ: not sourced.
• Expected: the combined company is to operate under the Prefect name from August 2026 after the close (dagster.io/prefect); no close announcement was found as of 2026-10-08.
• Acquirer: see the Prefect tool note (no separate company note).

Sources (fetched 2026-10-07)

• https://dagster.io/blog ; https://dagster.io/blog/prefect-is-acquiring-dagster
• Second pass (2026-10-08): https://dagster.io/prefect ; https://www.prefect.io/prefect-acquires-dagster ; https://dagster.io/blog/elementl-series-b

Open items

• Deal value, whether the transaction has closed, later funding, headquarters.