Apiphani Acquires Tradeoff Software, Welcoming Founder Braden Ericson to Lead Product & Engineering
Apiphani, an AI-native technology services and automation company supporting mission-critical enterprise applications, today announced it has acquired Tradeoff Software, the AI-focused product development firm founded by Braden Ericson. The move deepens apiphani’s product and engineering leadership as it advances its proprietary automation and observability platform, luumen.
Founded in 2024, Tradeoff Software built AI-powered infrastructure tools and LLM-based applications for startups and enterprises. Following the acquisition, Ericson joins apiphani as Vice President, Product & Engineering, overseeing product management, design, and software development for luumen, and reporting directly to Co-Founder and CEO Justin Folkers. Key Tradeoff team members — Zach Hill, Senior Software Engineer, and Allie Keith, Product Designer — will also transition to apiphani as part of the integration.
“I love building things and working with AI, so joining a services-forward company wasn’t an obvious next step. But once I saw what apiphani was doing, and got to know the people behind it, their pursuit of excellence was compelling. They reliably deliver 99.999% uptime already and still push every day to be better. The chance to take that kind of service and pair it with what we’re building on the luumen product side is a really exciting mix,” said Ericson.
“Braden and his team amplify what we’re building at apiphani — technically, culturally, and in how they think about solving problems,” said Folkers. “They deliver that rare ability to see around corners, and to build products with that perspective in mind. I couldn’t imagine a better partner to help bring our vision for agentic AI-enabled services to life.”
Before founding Tradeoff, Ericson was a software engineer and product manager at PayPal, where he was named on more than 20 patents and recognized as one of PayPal’s Top Inventors. He later founded Sparrow, a marketing analytics platform that grew to more than 6,000 users before being acquired.