Growblocks is a B2B software-as-a-service company (SaaS), has been running for a year and a half and has now raised a second round of capital. The company was founded by three experienced people from the scaleup environment, where they have been involved in, among other things, Falcon.io, Planday, Templafy, Adform and Raffle.ai. 

The product is a solution to optimize and create transparency in sales and marketing in B2B SaaS companies (see more below), and it is now ready to be sold to an (im)patiently waiting queue of clients.

6 fresh million 

The new capital round of € 6 million (approx. DKK 44.6 million) is led by the German venture fund Project A, which has not invested in Growblocks before. Growblocks solves a huge challenge that all investors in B2B SaaS companies know, which is why several investors knocked on the door.

“We chose Project A among the many who wanted to be involved, because they have sufficient experience in scaling B2B SaaS scaleups. Therefore, they are good to have on the journey now, as we need to scale our business, now that the product is ready to meet the market. The investment ensures that we can build a fantastic product at the same time as we can increase sales.” 

says Toni Holbein, CEO and founder of Growblocks

Toni was the Chief Revenue Officer of both Falcon.io and Planday.

“Both Falcon.io and Planday, which I have been involved in, were sold before reaching EUR 100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue. That is not my goal. I want to be on the whole journey and want to keep a stake, almost no matter how big we get.”

says Toni Holbein

Valuable customers in the development process 

In the development phase, Growblocks had a dozen customers with a turnover from 10 to 1,000 million DKK, and they were carefully selected to be able to provide input for the completion of the product. The unfinished solution was delivered in the form of manual consulting work based on insights from a calculation engine, which was the first Growblocks developed. 

The customers use Growblock’s solution to optimize their sales and marketing, but the customers’ activity is also a laboratory where Growblocks can optimize and further develop the product. That is still far more important to Growblocks than the turnover that the customers put in.

“Growblocks hits an absolutely huge, unsolved need, which is obvious once you see it. The founders’ background in a number of prominent scaleups, where they have solved precisely this problem with great success, made it easy for us to invest.”

says Sam Cash, partner at Project A

Growblocks’ value for customers 

In addition to being able to optimize your sales process, the problem and the solution have great significance for the valuation of a company. “Predictable sales”, i.e. that you live up to your sales budgets is decisive for the share price, both on the stock exchange and when a company is traded or receives an investment. Therefore, Growblocks especially expects that companies considering an IPO can see the value in the product. 

“You can regularly see in the news what it means to lack such an overview. A number of rounds of layoffs could perhaps have been avoided with more predictability about what creates the turnover.”

says Toni Holbein

Previous investors join in

In addition to Project A, which comes with the majority of the investment, the lead investor from the first investment, the venture fund Headline, has also contributed, so that the total amount invested so far is approximately DKK 60 million. 

The investors in the company count over 20 business angels, including Toni’s, Olafur’s and Andrew’s former boss, Ulrik Bo Larsen, who founded Falcon.io in his time.

Understanding Growblocks: “Budgeting” for B2B SaaS Sales 

Growblocks makes a solution that helps especially B2B software-as-a-service companies to get structure and transparency in generating revenue ie. the effect of sales and marketing. The sales and marketing process in this type of company is well described and many have experience in running it, but there was no tool that provided an overview. That’s what Growblocks does, and the idea stems from the founders’ own experiences from, among other things, Falcon.io and Planday.

“Everyone knows what a budget is. It keeps track of costs, like wages and rent and lunch, but the top line — revenue — is typically just one line in the budget. We turn the budget upside down and specify everything that has an impact on revenue, e.g. customer segments, sub-processes in sales, marketing and sales work. We monitor this in real time and compare it with the company’s expected development. When an element does not perform, you can quickly put in there“. 

says Toni Holbein

Typically, the company has a target for sales for each month and quarter, and with Growblock’s solution you no longer have to wait for a result on the top line in the monthly accounts.

At the same time, you can simulate different scenarios, e.g. what happens to sales if you hire five salespeople in January? This allows for far more qualified decisions regarding sales.

According to the founders, there are no other similar products on the market today.

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• Symphogen
• Trustpilot
• Pleo
• Vivino
• Peakon
• Planday
• SNIPR Biome
• Simple Feast
• Blackwood Seven

These startup have together raised over € 1 billion in funding since being started, and are emerging as the most important tech companies in Denmark.

We have talked a bit extra with one of them, Planday. Besides being listed on this list, Planday has an impressive list of being selected as one of the 100 best Copenhagen start-ups to watch and work for in 2019, and top 100 SaaS companies from Europe – amongst many other shortlists.

We talked with Anders Frederiksen, co-founder of Planday, about them being selected one of the most important startups in Denmark

“It is an exciting acknowledgement of our progress,. This recognition is thanks to the hard work and dedication of our people in Copenhagen and in our offices throughout Europe and North America who are always looking for new ways to optimise the work we do.”

Planday was originally founded as a way to save time for managers with scheduling staff, but has since grown international.

“When we started in a Danish bar 16 years ago we set out to save people time and money and work smarter, not harder. Now, we have thousands of businesses around the world which use Planday. Last year we celebrated passing more than 100 million shifts created in the Planday platform.”

Being in Copenhagen and part of the thriving tech scene, has definitely helped the startup succeed.

“We are really proud to still call Copenhagen home and want to continue to bring the best of Scandinavian innovation and design together to enable shift-workers and the businesses which employ them around the world to work smarter. While we continue to scale and follow our ambitions to power even more people and businesses to work smarter, it is great to be part of an awesome tech community that also helps support that vision.”

You can read more about the shortlist here.

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“From 2016 to 2019, it rose from $2 billion to $5 billion, growing much faster than in the US, which grew from $15 billion to $20 billion. It now represents one quarter of the US. European companies have been able to raise rounds as large as their US counterparts, and UiPath and Veeam top the list with $568 million and $500 million in total investment respectively.” the report says

This region has been known for being strong in B2B focused startups, of which many are SaaS companies. Even so, for some, such as Planday, this is a sought-after listing. Planday raised an historic € 35 million funding round by leading European investors last year.

“Planday’s roots are Danish but our mindset and know-how is global. By bringing the best of Danish design and a commitment to the empowerment of working people, we have developed a market-leading product and have been backed by the market to grow and pioneer new solutions even more,” says Christian Brøndum CEO at Planday.

Having four startups from the region on the European lists shows the strength we have here. But as with any larger startup, they are not just based here – but taking the strength from this region global.

“We are very much a Scandinvian company — our headquarters are in Copenhagen and our offices are in Oslo, Hamburg, London and Los Angeles. In everything we do, we try to bring the best of Scandic design and efficiency to every touch-point in the Planday platform, experience and partner ecosystem.” Christian says

About the startups

GetAccept – Is a tool for rethinking how sales document work. With their eSigning workflow they help salespeople close more deals.

Peakon – Peakon works with increasing feedback within organisations. Its tool collects employee feedback, analyses it, and then delivers it back to the organisation.

Planday – Planday builds software that makes it easier for managers and hourly workers to communicate, collaborate, and get work done. The focus is to make the relationship between hourly workers and their managers more efficient and productive.

Templafy – Templafy helps users improve productivity, branding, and compliance across business documents, presentations, and emails. Templafy’s platform assists enterprise employees in each stage of the document creation workflow, delivering productive, compliant and enjoyable ways.

You can read the report by Accel Partners over at tech.eu.

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In 2014, Planday received investment from Creandum, and in 2015, they received another investment from former global Just-Eat CEO, Klaus Nyengaard. In 2016, Planday received a $14 million series B investment led by Idinvest, Creandum, SEB Private Equity, and Angel Investor Arthur Kosten, co-founder of Booking.com. Now METRO has invested in Planday and Dr. Flesner will be joining the Planday Board.

METRO has committed to acquire a minority stake in Planday and will expand its ability to digitally transform the hospitality sector through carefully selected investments into best-in-class digital solution providers. Planday provides a solution that enables business owners to take employee scheduling from pen and paper to a streamlined, digital process — saving managers significant time and resources. Planday grew out of a simple idea: scheduling and communication should be simple and straightforward for both managers and employees.

“METRO is committed to offering its customers the best digital tools available, allowing them to run their businesses more efficiently and successfully,” said Dr Hansjörg Sage, Managing Director of METRO’s digital business unit. “With Planday, METRO can now offer its customers a world-class, cloud-based employee scheduling and management system. Planday easily convinced us that they were the most robust and easy-to-use solution”

Planday CEO, Christian Brøndum, commented on the announcement:

“We are determined to help hospitality and retail businesses move away from outdated, complicated, and cumbersome tools and processes. This means businesses are sufficiently staffed for busy periods, maximizing sales and customer loyalty, while not over-staffing quieter periods, which reduces unnecessary costs”.

With its sales lines METRO Cash & Carry and Real as well as its other associated companies, METRO GROUP W&FS Co. operates in 35 countries and employs more than 150,000 people around the world.

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Planday’s offers a real-time platform for shift planning, making it easier for managers and employees to plan and communicate their work hours. The company has seen rapid growth during the past years, increasing the number of users by 100% within the last 12 months. Planday now has more than 100,000 end-users in 24 different countries.

Expansion and Integration

The new investment will be used to strengthen Planday’s presence in the US while focusing on integration with other existing SaaS solutions in Europe. The company is already well established on the North American market with several customers within the hospitality and retail industries.

“Before using Planday, we had two challenges: one was tracking shift changes among the team, and the other was having a clear, concise picture of the schedule that we could easily manipulate. Planday has saved Ellary’s Greens countless hours in scheduling and logistical communications. Our employees love using Planday because they get more clarity around the schedule and the autonomy and independence that allows them to exchange shifts,” says Leith Hill, Founder, and President of Ellery’s Greens, who has integrated Planday into their company.

The Series B investment round has been a huge success and a big improvement from the $ 3.75 million raised in their Series A round back in 2014. The investors are also very optimistic about the prospects of Planday’s service on the American marked.

“Right from the beginning, we have seen a huge potential in Planday, because many shift-based firms such as restaurants, hotels and fitness chains use convoluted boards and simple spreadsheets to keep track of their employees’ shifts. Planday’s system hands over the responsibility to the employees and frees the managers from a great deal of the administrative work. It is undoubtedly a clean business case,” says Johan Brenner, Investment Partner at Creandum, who, for the second time, has chosen to fund Planday.

Guillaume Durao, the Investment Director at Idinvest, also notes that by focusing on integration with leading economy and HR-systems, the benefits of Planday will become increasingly apparent. This will have a great impact on the use of Plandays in the European market.

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The funding is as grants, without any equity stake. The aim of the Market Development Fund is to help startups and enterprises bring new products to the market faster and making it easier for public-sector institutions to obtain innovative solutions. The funding goes to both biotech, cleantech and ICT innovations.

“The latest round of application testify that we in Denmark are skilled to develop good, innovative products – especially in health technology. It is positive for both the welfare and growth, because in the future of health care will be fewer hands to take care of an increasing amount of patients” says Carsten Bjerg from the fund.

Receiving the funding also requires to be partially financed by other sources. In total the Market Development Fund has € 18 M which are granted in 3 phases.

19 projects got funding

Amongst those that got funding are both new startups as well as established ones.

• Inrotech – 3D Adaptive Multipass Welding – € 295 000
• Traede – B2B sales software – market maturation of an innovative and disruptive Retails/B2B trading software – € 415 000
• Immudex – better treatment for Virusinfections – € 400 000
• Penneo – Protecting cloud data against hacking – € 616 000
• Monsenso – Data-driven mHealth platform for treating mental illnesses – € 388 000
• Conferize – Digitalising events and conferences – € 530 000
• EasyCorrect – A tool for helping teachers – € 240 000
• FirstAED – A smartphone based emergency system – € 295 000
• Dripmate – Developing a infusionsregulator – € 280 000
• Kroma – Creating a better fish slaughtering plant – € 450 000
• Nordic Power Converters – Making LEDs more efficient and longer lasting – € 280 000
• Manuxa – Aid for people with grip deficiencies € 470 000
• H.E.W. – Efficient cleaning of supermarket carts – € 240 000
• Voiceboxer – Multilingual Webcast Solution – € 250 000
• MySharps – the smart personal pocket container for disposal of used insulin pen needles – € 200 000
• Planday – Taking employee scheduling online globally – € 316 000
• SiloSense – Making estimations of silos better – € 385 000
• TableBox – A box that enables dining without a table – € 250 000
• VoxIP – Making international roaming cheaper – € 280 000

The entire list with further information and co-financing details can be found here.

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Drawing on experience from Just-Eat

When Creandum in 2014 invested in Planday, they kept the part of the investment open to the right co-investor. Now it has been announced that Klaus Nyengaard takes that role. Klaus past with building and internationalising Just-Eat will be a great asset for the Planday team.

“Klaus Nyengaard has a great insight in working with software-as-a-service and to scale an organisation. His experiences will therefore benefit Planday considerably.” says Christian Brøndum, CEO at Planday.

Klaus will not take an active position at the company or it’s board. Instead, he will act as a sounding board for Christian and the other directors.

“We are well on the way to internationalise our business and expect to roll out to three to five new markets this year. Klaus Nyengaard has made this journey with Just-Eat with great success.”

Making employee scheduling easy, world-wide

The company’s slack bots makes it easy for companies to manage employees schedules, HR and payroll. The vast majority of small and medium-sized companies are still doing this manually, either with physical boards or using excel or simple spreadsheets. It is time consuming and error-prone, and the smallest mistake can quickly become costly for companies, often operating on low margins. Here Planday found its niche via a web-based solution that can also be accessed by mobile. Thus, employees can easily swap shifts with each other and the smooth processes provides competitive advantages.

“We find that there is a very large and unmet demand among small and medium-sized businesses for a better way to organise their working hours. Our goal is to become a global leader in this time-management segment and we go for an annual growth of 100%.”

Planday currently has 53 employees, and aims to grow by at least 25 more this year. They are currently helping over 50 000 users, including companies such as Best Western, Falck and Novo Nordisk.

An opportunity not to pass on

After the sale of Just-Eat, Klaus went back to Denmark and devoted part of his time to invest in promising tech startups, including GenieBelt, Shipbeat and Tradono. Common to these startups is that they deal with workflow and online marketplaces, something that is true for Planday as well.

“When I invest in a company, it must have at least the potential to become leading in Europe. In addition, the team must be competent and the chemistry between them right. And finally, they need to operate in an industry I understand. A few simple criterias, but they are important. Planday is an exciting company that has all possible conditions for becoming the predominant player in global time-management. It was an opportunity I would not let go.” says Klaus Nyengaard.

The sum of the investment has not been disclosed. Creandum invested € 3.5 M in Planday in 2014.

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Also celebrating startup successes

The event however was also about celebrating startup successes in general. It had two high-profile sessions: Mikkel Svane, of Zendesk fame, and Mette Lykke, from Endomondo. With Zendesks IPO and Endomondos exit to Under Armour, these two startups are the most high profile born in Copenhagen in recently.

Mikkel gave a presentation about Zendesk, how it started, lessons learned and insights.

“We had no idea what we were doing. We truly didn’t. But we tried a lot.”

– was one of Mikkels insights. One of the hard parts about being an entrepreneur he felt was the mixture of optimism, with realism.

“You have to embrace that you will succeed. But also that you will fail.”

He also emphasised that Zendesk should not be regarded as a clear case for how to build a startup. It was a lucky shot, being at the right time at the right circumstances. However, he said it is also a combination of luck and seeing the opportunity. They never planned on having such an impact with their early product, but when they saw the interest it got from all around the world, they quickly realised they had a chance to do something big, and decided to act on it.

“As a startup you have to open all the doors.”

Insights into being acquired

Mette held a fireside chat, being interviewed by Kasper Hulthin. With both of them being founders at startups that have been acquired by big international corporations, there were a lot of questions about how it felt and the struggle with being acquired. Insights into the due diligence process, the challenge of keeping the double focus of building a startup while being in long negotiations with potential acquirers, and handling the communication around it, both to ones own employees as well as outsiders.

Mette also talked about Endomondos journey, and how it all stared. With all founders being former McKinsey, it was rather easy to get started. She drew smiles with the stories:

“We had no problem getting VC meeting. The PowerPoint was really nice!”

However, a lot of focus was also on the tough times Endomondo had been thru, especially the downsizing and hard decisions that needed to be made in 2012.

The fireside chat was very insightful, and of high value for a lot of the entrepreneurs in the audience – getting to know the feeling and troubles with being acquired is a good knowledge to have.

It is great to see that the community celebrates and talks about successes in this way, and that there is a chance to meet and learn between entrepreneurs. A great work by the #cphftw team for organising another simple yet high value event!

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Above you can see the some footage of the opening ceremony, where Zenia Francker from Founders House held the inauguration talk.

Founders house is a initiative where some of the most successful startups from Copenhagen have co-located in the same block. Startup Village is located at Islands Brygge on Njalsgade, in the old pakhusen. Some of the startups have had their offices there for a while already, but with the latest startups moving there the idea of branding it as Startup Village was born.

The houses are 4 old warehouses remodeled by a local floor marking contractor, with some startups having smaller spaces and some entire floors. It is a distinct historical area with great flavour and both indoor as well as outdoor locations.

Entrepreneurial initiative

Behind the initiative are the different startups, with Founders House moving there being one of the driving factors. It is a completly private initiative, with the aim of helping all startups located in the village. Somewhat ironically, the business department of the Copenhagen Municipallity actually had their offices just next door, until they moved to a new location, this summer.

Startups present

Some of the biggest startups present in the Startup Village are:

• Autobutler
• Bellmetric
• Churchweb
• Conferize
• Everplace
• Graduateland
• Labster
• Nabby
• Opbeat
• Planday
• Riidr
• Realm
• Shape
• Vivino

With the Founders House co-working space there are also a larger number of smaller and newer startups present.

Not just startups

The village also includes a café and a restaurant, as well as a Yoga center. Some ‘regular’ companies are present on the premises as well, such as White Arcitects office, as the this has rather been a gradual growing conglomeration of startups and not a top-down planned takeover, such as Berlin Factory. The idea is however to enable further startups to move there, with the assistance of a service like business moving services, as soon as floor-space becomes available.

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The new location, at Islands Brygge, will thus form a new innovative tech hub – dubbed the Startup Village Copenhagen.

Old warehouses turned into startups heaven

Islands Brygge’s historic warehouses marked by experts you can aslo hire if you click here used to be the headquarters of FDB, who stored and transported products to all of Denmark via direct tracks to Copenhagen Harbor. In recent years, the area has increasingly become the home of tech startups, and now that is accelerated. As of this summer, the area in Njalsgade will be the frame around Copenhagen’s biggest concentration of fast-growing startups, including the estabished startups Vivino, Opbeat, Graduateland and Autobutler, as well as over 15 other both early and later stage startups!

A real hub for startups

Having all these ambitious startups with offices side by side increase knowledge-sharing and in turn speeds up growth of the individual companies. All serious tech startups are welcome, both to take up offices at Njalsgade, now called Startup Village, and to join the many tech events and social stuff arranged so people can network, do business and have fun. Founders House will with it’s move also expand, so talk to them if you are a smaller startup and want to be part of their co-working area.

A grass-roots initiative

The entire idea behind the Startup Village comes from the community itself. In contrast to many other projects, this is not a government sponsored place or initiative, but rater it is the different startups realizing that they could create an area that they would love themselves. This is a similar trend seen elsewhere, with Berlins Factory (also to be opened this summer) being a similar initiative.

With both the established startups being there, and Founders House with its often earlier stage startups as well as smaller startups in their own offices, the Village will be a space for both startups that are just getting going, as well as later stage ones that have raised a successful series A or even a series B investment. The Village will also be a natural place for international startups establishing a Scandinavian presence to be located – something that already is apperent on the list of the initial startups forming the Startup Village!

All in all, a great step for the community to have that much knowledge in one place!

Startups present

The spaces are being put in shape now, and the inaugurations is set for the 29th of August. The following startups have said will be part of the Startup Village CPH when it starts:

• Shape
• Vivino
• Conferize
• Opbeat
• Graduateland
• Birdback
• Nabby
• TightDB
• Boligsurf
• Anker Studio
• Everplaces
• Kirkeweb
• Codeable.io
• HelloWorldMobile
• Labster
• BodyBarista
• MeeWee
• Riidr
• Pinstriped
• Pocket Risk
• SNIPS
• 8pen
• Bellmetric
• Autobutler
• Planday
• Hello Monday
• Driversnote

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