Timefold raises $13M Series A to scale its planning-optimisation APIs
What's the deal? Belgian software startup Timefold has closed a $13 million Series A round to scale its developer platform for routing and shift-planning APIs.
Munich-based Alstin CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with Kompas VCDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → joining as co-investor and existing backers Lakestar and SmartfinDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → also taking part.
The Ghent-based company lets software teams embed planning optimisation into their own apps without building a team of mathematicians or optimisation experts. Its base is an open-source engine packaged into modular, enterprise-ready products.
Why now? Timefold says it quadrupled its annual recurring revenue in 2025, driven by firms integrating its APIs into critical planning workflows.
It plans to use the fresh capital mainly to push expansion in the US and speed up product development. Customers already include NEC Software Solutions, CBREDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, LufthansaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Thales, Subaru, Orange Telecom, and ADP.
What could go wrong? Timefold pitches itself against the limits of generative AI, arguing that large language models work probabilistically and so produce unreliable schedules.
It instead uses a deterministic algorithm to decide which technician visits which customer, how to handle a sick employee, or how to build a shift plan that is fair, compliant, and fully staffed.
"What counts in planning business-critical operations is not creativity, but correctness," said Alexander Meyer-Scharenberg, partner at Alstin Capital. A route must be correct, compliant, and reproducible every time — something LLMs are not built for.
The company backs its case with its own figures: one global property firm cut travel times by up to 33% and distances by 43%, while a US retail staffing provider shrank a 10-week planning process to 10 minutes.
The signal: The round captures a contrarian bet: while much of the market chases generative AI, Timefold and lead investor Alstin Capital are wagering that deterministic optimisation — not probabilistic models — is the infrastructure mission-critical scheduling actually needs. As an early-stage company that quadrupled recurring revenue in 2025 and already counts Lufthansa, Subaru, and CBRE among its customers, Timefold is using this capital to turn enterprise traction into a US foothold.
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