Taking Employee Scheduling to the Next Level: Planday Raises $14.1 Million Investment

Taking employee scheduling to the next level: Planday raises $14.1 million investment

Today, we are proud to announce that we have raised a $14.1 million Series B round of funding. The round is led by new investors Idinvest, and also includes Creandum – the lead investor in our Series A round in 2014 – and SEB Private Equity, and Angel Investor Arthur Kosten.

Today marks the day that we at Planday take a huge step towards reaching our goal of being the leading player in connecting employees and managers in shift-based businesses.

Connecting people in shift-based businesses

In the last 12 years, we’ve seen how shift-based businesses are faced with the fact that managers and employees often don’t work the same hours, making shift planning and team communication difficult and complex. However, by offering a transparent, real-time platform, Planday enables businesses and employees to work together in a way that suits everyone.

We’ve felt the growing need for better and more flexible teamwork across businesses in the last couple of years as the number of shift-based businesses is increasing, along with the number of employees in each organization. Furthermore, the need to be connected is stronger than ever, with smartphones being the most important tool we have to plan our day.

“With all communication being handled via smartphones and laptops, we now have a unique opportunity to connect employees and managers on a much more collaborative level than ever before. Planday enables shift-based businesses to move away from old-fashioned, manual processes and interact with their employees in real-time. This gives everyone across organizations much more freedom to plan their day, while also strengthening the interaction between hourly paid employees and their workplaces,” says Christian Broendum, CEO at Planday.

Since closing the Series A round, we’ve experienced an incredible 100% year-over-year growth to over 100,000 end-users in 24 different countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. We’re so proud to see that Planday solves fundamental problems for shift-based businesses and that more and more are joining our family every day.

Next stop – partnering and integrating

What makes us even more proud is the fact that Idinvest Partners, one of the leading pan-European private equity firms, believes in Planday as well. Idinvest Partners, Creandum, SEB Private Equity and Angel Investor Arthur Kosten will now ensure that we can take Planday in the direction that is needed to become the leading player in the ecosystem which is built around shift-based workers and their managers.

“When Mikkel [Lomholt, founder and CTO] first presented the idea of Planday to me, I was instantly convinced that he was on to something big. After lots of talks with potential customers, we realized that we had found a huge gap in the market. Now, when I talk to customers, 12 years later, it’s amazing to experience how that idea has actually turned into an important tool for optimizing shift-based businesses,” says Anders Frederiksen, co-founder and CSO.

“It’s been amazing to see how people’s relationship to SaaS products has changed over the years—now we all rely on software to not only run our businesses, but to manage our personal lives. Technology is constantly evolving, and new tools hit the market every day. I’m proud that Planday has not only been a part of that movement, but has lead our industry in providing a better SaaS solution that makes a meaningful difference in people’s lives. With this investment, we’ll be building out our integration capability and recruiting tech talent at all seniority levels to increase our organizational maturity and the pace at which we deliver innovation. And I’m really looking forward to taking it to the next level,” Mikkel Lomholt, founder and CTO, adds.

The road ahead is pretty clear for Planday. We are going to use this investment to expand further into the US, strengthen our leadership in the European market, and develop integrations with other technologies that support shift-based businesses, including payroll providers, find and hire services, and Epos technologies.

“I’ve been hugely impressed with the team at Planday,” adds CMO John Coldicutt. “I’m confident that we have the product, strategy and team to succeed. Building integrations and partnerships has been a key growth driver for every software business I’ve been involved with and I see a huge potential for Planday to play a central role in the shift-based workforce ecosystem.”

And there's no doubt that with our newly updated app experience for users, and our simplified interface for US customers, we're ready to take employee scheduling to the next stage.

Want to have a look at Planday? Check out the video below and get a tour through the system.

About Idinvest:
With more than €6 billion under management, Idinvest Partners is a leading pan-European private equity firm focused on the middle-market segment. Idinvest Partners has developed several complementary areas of expertise including Venture Capital, Growth Capital and Private Debt investments in unlisted European companies as well as Primary and Secondary investments in European private equity funds. Founded under the name AGF Private Equity in 1997, Idinvest Partners was formerly part of Allianz until 2010 when it joined forces with IDI as an independent firm.

About Creandum:
Creandum is a leading European venture capital investor, focusing on innovative and fast-growing technology companies within consumer, software and hardware industries. The Creandum funds have over €400M under management and are advised by the Creandum Advisory companies with offices in Stockholm and Palo Alto. Creandum funds have over the last decade invested in more than 50 companies including Spotify, Tictail, iZettle, and Vivino.