- Timefold, a Belgian startup, has raised $6.7 million to boost its AI scheduling platform.
- Timefold makes use of AI to optimize planning for industries like transport and logistics.
- Lakestar, a VC fund, led the funding spherical as Timefold plans to develop its advertising and marketing efforts.
Timefold, a Belgian startup that makes use of AI to assist companies create operational plans corresponding to worker shift scheduling, has raised $6.7 million in funding.
Based mostly in Ghent, Belgium, Timefold’s cofounder believes that main industries like transport, logistics, and provide chain companies can all enhance their advanced infrastructure.
“Planning is all over the place and sometimes hidden in plain sight, but environment friendly schedules are uncommon,” Geoffrey De Smet, CTO and cofounder of Timefold, mentioned in an announcement. “From the sector service technician coming to repair your boiler to the aircraft assigned to your subsequent flight, schedules run the world. We’re tackling advanced planning issues by offering out-of-the-box planning fashions for IT groups to run, check, and configure simply.”
Timefold develops software program that analyses a enterprise’s knowledge and, utilizing a proprietary algorithm primarily based on the open-source OptaPlanner venture, offers it with a planning mannequin. The startup says it will probably resolve issues corresponding to last-mile supply routing and upkeep scheduling. In line with the startup’s pitch deck, Timefold works with corporations like Deutsche Bahn and Palantir.
“There’s a complete center floor the place current options do not match, so our platform is broader, and we have created a system which is extendable,” Frederik Demets, Timefold’s CCO, advised Enterprise Insider in an interview. He added that whereas it is AI, it is not a big language mannequin or machine studying algorithm. As an alternative, Timefold feeds its platform “the constraints and knowledge, and it makes use of heuristics to offer options.”
VC agency Lakestar led Timefold’s increase alongside current investor Smartfin. Funding will go in direction of rising the corporate’s platform and advertising and marketing spend because it seems to be to extend its headcount to round 40 workers this 12 months.
Try Timefold’s 15-slide pitch deck beneath: