The startup was launched in the beginning of 2015 and had stable growth throughout the year with around 150 000 app downloads from the Appstore. Tradono’s most active marketplaces are naturally the most populated Danish cities like Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense but many smaller towns are present on the site as well. Mads Aarøe Mathiesen, co-founder of Tradono says the site is ready to be introduced abroad, with the next market being probably somewhere in Europe.

Besides exploring new markets, the team will continue to focus on improving the user experience of the site to encourage more secondhand shopping.

“Every time we facilitate a deal that would not have happened otherwise, we make two people happier, and our consumption will be headed towards a more sustainable direction. In 2016 we will have many more unused stuff out of hiding.” says Mads Aarøe Mathiesen.

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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.

The post Klaus Nyengaard joins Creandum as investor in Planday appeared first on Øresund Startup News.

The Founders

The team consists of entrepreneur Mads Aarøe Mathiesen, know from company factory Rainmaking and the success of Frokost.dk, Martin Suhr Madsen, founder of the activity tracker I Do Move which Tradono’s graphic designer, Nicklas Skov Pape, also was a part of. With Eric André, Emil Melgaard and Cynthia Nixon also onboard; Tradono boasts a team of capable and determined entrepreneurs.

The Vision

Tradono was born into a world where buying and selling online was quite a hassle, and sought to transform that experience into one which was more pleasurable and successful.

It all began with a click; as the girlfriend of one of the team was spotted purchasing items on Facebook. After brief investigation, they learnt that over 40 million people worldwide bought secondhand items through Facebook.  Light bulb moment:

“Facebook is a great place to buy and sell, but it doesn’t offer categories and a good search engine, like that offered on DBA – We take the best of Facebook and DBA to build a social flea market,” explains Mads Aarøe Mathiesen to Trendsonline.dk

The perks of using Facebook and social media as a platform for buying and selling is that you can see who you are dealing with, making it feel more secure. Plus, you are almost guaranteed to receive a direct and quick reply from the seller by simply commenting on the items you are viewing. As well as this, Tradono offers a 5-star rating system to ensure safe buying and selling and promote a trustworthy community of sellers. With these features built in to the Tradono trading platform, it is no wonder that the app has become so popular.

The Investors

Of the three supporting Danes, the multi-talented Christian Stadil is one, as stated by trendsonline.dk A prominent businessman, CEO of Thornico Group and owner of sport brand Hummel; Stadil knows business potential when he sees it. Add a great product, a reliable team and a solid investor base and you have Stadil’s confidence and finances:

“There are market leaders like eBay, DBA and Craigslist, but Tradono have created a method of purchasing and selling used goods in a whole new way. It is faster, easier, more fun and more entertaining, and they have a super exciting business model that has great potential. Combined with a team that is highly skilled, and have proven that they are on the go at all times of the day,” he says to Trendsonline.dk.

Stadil collaborates on this investment with entrepreneur and investor Klaus Nyengaard, who internationalized takeaway company Just-Eat, and Jacob Masters, former Danish director of the online auction house QXL. Both are eager to contribute with their expertise to see Tradono scroll its way up to the ranks of market dominators Amazon and eBay.

“With my background as country manager for QXL, I can hopefully contribute with practical experience regarding driving traffic and scaling a marketplace, ” believes Jacob Masters.

The Future

With this investment, the team at Tradono can focus on developing their product, as the one currently on the market is a beta product which has only been used in a test mode. The priority now is to make the app available for iPhones, which should be launched this November. Their goal is to reach the top three in at least one country, foreseeably Denmark and closely followed by Sweden, Germany and England.

Follow Tradono’s journey on Facebook and try out the app now.

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