Belgium-based software startup Timefold has closed €6 million from leading VC investor Lakestar, an early investor in Spotify, Revolut, sennder, and others, and existing seed investor Smartfin, which invested in Deliverect and Happeo.
Funds utilisation
The funding will allow Timefold to launch its PlanningAI technology, an AI-powered planning optimisation platform, designed for large-scale and complex business applications like vehicle routing, job assignments, and employee scheduling.
Enrico Mellis, Principal at Lakestar, said: “Geoffrey’s life’s work has been to revolutionise how complex NP-hard problems are addressed, saving enterprises, governments, and infrastructure providers hundreds of millions of euros annually. For 18 years, his leading open-source technology has optimised critical operations, scheduling shifts for thousands of police officers, routing millions of parcels, assigning gates at major airports, and planning national train timetables. When we met Geoffrey, Maarten, and the rest of the Timefold team, we recognised how uniquely talented this team is and the outsized potential of a category winner in the making.”
What does the company do?
Across the globe, businesses and government entities ranging from airports, rail companies, and emergency services depend on effective scheduling to ensure smooth operations and keep societies functioning. Timefold has identified the widespread issue that companies are wasting time, money, and efficiency because no planning optimisation platform is both easy to use and easily integrates within the existing infrastructure.
Founded by Maarten Vandenbroucke and OptaPlanner creator Geoffrey De Smet, previously under IBM Red Hat, Timefold has a mission to free the world from wasteful scheduling and is dedicated to making planning optimization easy to understand and use.
Timefold has launched a ‘PlanningAI’ platform. It intends to rid the world of wasteful scheduling by offering an easy, low-friction approach to tackle complex, large-scale planning problems within enterprise environments, eliminating lengthy development cycles and costly dependency on consultancy retainers through the use of AI.
The PlanningAI platform specialises in complex scheduling and routing optimisation for enterprise companies. Its solutions are deployed across the US, the UK, and the EU, ensuring that businesses worldwide have access to the PlanningAI expertise. It helps everyone optimise their operations and scheduling faster, smarter, and more efficiently.
Maarten Vandenbroucke, co-founder and CEO of Timefold, said: “Typically, companies are left with two extreme choices: build their own models which take long development cycles and costly consultancy retainers, or use underpowered automation tools. With Timefold, neither is necessary. We have enterprise-ready models for field service routing, employee scheduling, production planning, and more in development. Our clients are already achieving better outcomes, and faster time-to-market, which significantly reduces risk from their end.”
Geoffrey De Smet, CTO and co-founder of Timefold, said: “Planning is everywhere and often hidden in plain sight, yet efficient schedules are rare. From the field service technician coming to fix your boiler to the plane assigned to your next flight: schedules run the world. We are tackling complex planning problems by providing out-of-the-box planning models for IT teams to run, test, and configure easily. It is easy to use, has no math, and no need for consultants. Our API plugs seamlessly into your software, and with Lakestar’s backing, we can help businesses deploy planning that increases productivity, improves employee happiness, and reduces carbon emissions.”
Customer base
Timefold already boasts an impressive client roster from some of the world’s most notable companies, including Palantir, as well as global organisations such as NEC, ADP, and Deutsche Bahn.
“Palantir has collaborated with the Timefold team to make their world-class scheduling optimisers available across our Foundry and AI Platforms. The team’s experience, the depth of their solutions, and their willingness to dive into hard problems have enabled us to deliver significant outcomes for our customers. We are excited about their fundraise and look forward to scaling our impact together into the future,” said Molly Carmody, Planning Optimisation Lead at Palantir.
