Serial founder Dorothy Creaven on life after Rent the Runway

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been a super fan of Dorothy Creavan long before this interview. I’m not quite sure exactly what the draw is. I think it’s a combination of things. When you speak with her, there is just such a good energy, and when she speaks about her projects, what she says seems so sincere – there are no empty words or phrases that have no real meaning.

“I spent an incredible five years at Rent the Runway. I really did love it. I built an amazing team of incredible people there – I had so many great opportunities with Rent the Runway, but it came to a time where I was looking to do something else,” she says about her time as managing director and site lead of Rent the Runway’s European headquarters in Galway.

The plan was to take some time out, travel and decide what her next move was but that was curtailed as a ski accident, resulting in a badly broken leg, meant travel plans were put on hold. Still, healing broken bones gives you plenty of time to reevaluate life and plan your next move, when you can actually move.

“It was still incredible to actually have the total luxury of taking some time off. I realise that not everyone has that opportunity, so I am very lucky – I just didn’t want to do the same thing again, I really felt like I really wanted to stretch myself,” she says. What better way to stretch yourself than starting over with a brand new company?

“I’ve always been very entrepreneurial,” she says, referring to her previous startup, Element Software. “So I was very familiar with what it’s like to build a company. I’d also done it in various guises, through various roles over the last 15-20 years. I love the buzz of building. I think, in essence, I’m a builder at heart. I love creating something out of nothing.

“I love creating high-performing teams,” she continues. “I really like working with people and having the challenge of figuring out what is it that we’re building from a culture perspective, from a team perspective, but also from a product perspective, and how are we going to get an incredible product into the hands of customers?”

“It’s where my strengths are, and I had a craving to do that again, but not just for another company, I wanted to do it for my own company,” she adds.

A mutual friend suggested she have a chat with Sean Blanchfield, as he was also thinking of building something new. They were not strangers to each other, having met each other in founders circles in the past.

“There was a real meeting of minds and a meeting of ambition. Sean’s vision was to build Jentic, and he was looking for a couple of co-founders to build it with. I was really blown away by Sean’s vision of building a really successful company out of Ireland, hiring incredible people, but ultimately building an incredible product in the AI space,” she says.

“That really was the part for me – the world is completely changing as a result of the introduction of AI – specifically if you narrow it down in the area of AI agents. There is a lot of activity in the area now, which is probably going to replace a lot of software, of how software is being developed, written and actually used in real terms.”

And so Jentic was born in Autumn 2024 – Blanchfield as CEO, Creaven as COO and Michael Cordner joining the co-founder line-up as Chief Technology Officer. The team announced a €4 million funding round in early January this year, moved into new Grattan Street offices in Dublin and is now a team of over 20 people.

“We’re doing the startup thing and every day is incredibly different, lots of challenges, really exciting, and very energising I think is the best way of describing it,” says Creaven.

“We’re more focused on the backbone or the infrastructure side of AI agents. If you think most companies today use dozens of apps and tools like Slack, HubSpot or Google Sheets, but none of them actually talk to each other, right? So that’s where Jentic comes in,” she explains.

“Jentic lets you build a really smart AI agent, or a universal agent, that connects all of the tools and all of the things these tools could do for you. It could be answering customer queries, maybe preparing sales reports or booking meetings by directly talking to your software, or your custom software, without needing a developer to build integrations,” she says.

“A lot of companies use so many apps, and there’s so much data that is siloed – none of the data is shared – and where AI agents come in is really being able to share a lot of that data in a way that can make your company, your employees, and everything you do a lot more productive,” she adds.

With Jentic taking off, the team being built and new hires being announced, there is one more situation Creaven has to manage. The commute.

“I still love Galway, we still have a house there, so I’m splitting my time between Galway and Dublin right now but mostly based in Dublin these days. My husband can also work from Dublin, which is great, but Galway is still our home,” she says.