Planday raises €35M Series C for its shift-based work collaboration platform

Planday, the workforce collaboration platform for shift workers, has raised €35 million in new funding. The Series C round is led by SEB Private Equity, with participation from previous backers, including Creandum and Idinvest.

The Danish startup plans to use the additional investment to further develop the cloud-based software and to expand into new markets across Europe and North America. This will also include establishing a U.K.-based technology development hub — which represents a major market for Planday — as well as to grow sales and customer support teams in its London office.

Founded in 2013, Planday has developed a flexible rota scheduling platform that is used by businesses to help manage shift workers. The cloud software enables “real-time, contextual communication” between employees, managers and co-workers in shift-based industries that have been traditionally underserved by tech.

Specifically, employees can communicate with each other, swap shifts and clock in and out. Managers can also create ‘smart’ schedule templates, measure their target revenue compared to wage costs and track hours worked.

Planday is also arguably a platform in the true sense of the word, in terms of integrating with integrating with various third-party software offerings that are used by shift-based businesses. This includes payroll/accounting software from from Intuit and Sage, and EPOS software from Lightspeed and iZettle.

“Our mission is to deliver fully integrated solutions that provide a seamless experience for our customers,” says John Coldicutt, Chief Commercial Officer at Planday.

Meanwhile, Planday says its customer base spans 39 countries, and in the U.K., where it is estimated that 26 percent of all work is shift-based, the startup is growing 250 percent annually, although it doesn’t break out actual numbers.