Kiwi project capability startup Runn.io raises $2 million seed round

Runn.io, a New Zealand software startup that offers company project managers the ability to plan, track and forecast staffing capability and capacity, has raised US$1.41 million (A$2m) in a Seed round.

The round was backed by leading NZ VC GD1 as well as Wavemaker, NZGCP, K1W1, Dovetail Ventures, Icehouse Ventures and Angel Marlborough.

The funding is earmarked for product build out and accelerating growth.

Runn.io co-founder Tim Copeland said that project management can be challenging and unnecessarily opaque.

Runn.io founder and CEO Tim Copeland

“Disconnected systems or complex spreadsheets are often stress-tested when projects go on hold, priorities change and people leave a company or team,” he said.

“Runn.io enables cloud-based planning, tracking and forecasting of capability and capacity through a powerful, user-friendly UI.”

Copeland focused on integrating “the employee voice”, including features that ensure employees are doing work that’s most meaningful to them on Runn.io believing it will help modern organisations thrive in the post-Covid world of work.

“By nature, technical companies often manage a high number of projects simultaneously with people moving between these,” he said.

“Our cloud-based interface comes with features that make it easy to deal with complexity and change. A handy scenario planning feature allows users to quickly see how winning or losing new work will affect resourcing and the company’s bottom line, or what skill sets a company might need to hire based on their future sales pipeline.”

While New Zealand-based, Runn.io is already an global company, with 40% of its customers in the US, including Fortune 1000 and 500 customers, and another 30% in Europe, including the UK and Denmark.

Copeland said they’ve seen revenue growth of 600% in 2021 and one thing the platform will help companies deal with in the year ahead is the spectre of the “great resignation”.

 “Talent is a scarcity in today’s economy and will be for some time. Runn.io was built with employees in mind,” he said.

“It helps employers understand demand and available capacity, including the impact of project and milestone changes on their greatest asset – their people. They can optimise the workload of individuals and teams, and avoid the kind of bottlenecks and delays that prevent them from doing better work.

“Runn.io is as flexible as work environments are unpredictable; and we’re super proud to be supporting modern organisations navigate high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity with ease.”

GD1 co-managing partner John Kells said Runn.io has built the right product at the right time.

“Covid has fast-tracked an environment in which we need modern solutions for managing people. In many ways,” he said.