SAN JOSE — Planera, a visual scheduling and planning solution that helps construction companies build, analyze, and optimize schedules to increase profitability, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding from Sorenson Ventures, Firebolt Ventures, and several prominent construction executives.
Developed by a team led by founder Nitin Bhandari, who most recently served as Life360’s Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, and Saif Lodhi, a construction industry veteran, Planera provides a more accessible alternative to the industry’s legacy systems and overly complex Gantt-chart-based scheduling tools. Planera’s project scheduling software eliminates the guesswork in the construction planning and estimation process.
Planera’s construction scheduling software combines the sophisticated capabilities of legacy solutions, such as critical path, float management, project filtering, and resource usage graphs, with a simple-to-use online “whiteboard” interface that promotes collaboration and easy access across the entire project team. “Poor-quality schedules, especially during the pre-construction phase, can cost builders contractors millions of dollars. Too often, construction companies fail to develop detailed project schedules because legacy scheduling tools take too much time and effort,” said Saif Lodhi, a Planera co-founder with 30+ years of construction industry experience.
“The people with the most construction experience and expertise often don’t know how to use complicated, legacy scheduling software. This results in project delays, estimation errors, and client frustration. Planera is so simple that anyone with job knowledge can create a resource-loaded schedule in hours instead of weeks. With multi-user collaboration similar to Google Docs, we give scheduling superpowers to everyone in the construction industry,” said Nitin Bhandari, CEO and founder of Planera. “We combine the power of industry-leading scheduling tools with the simplicity of traditional whiteboards and spreadsheets.”
Founded in November 2021, Planera was developed in collaboration with construction industry professionals to be an accessible and adaptable technology for the construction, engineering, architecture/design, and general contractor sectors. By simplifying the scheduling process for both infrastructure and commercial projects, Planera serves as a multifaceted tool that organizations can use to plan, create timelines, and collaborate with all key project stakeholders.
