Saskatoon’s 7shifts Secures $3.5 Million U.S. Investment

Saskatoon-based 7shifts, a restaurant employee scheduling solution, announced today the company has raised $3.5 million US.

The funding round was led by Tandem Capital and existing investor Relay Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $4.5 million.

With the latest boost in capital, 7shifts plans to build out the platform’s existing infrastructure to respond to increasing demands from restaurateurs to better manage their staff.

The solution automates employee scheduling and provides restaurants with detailed analytics about their teams. The platform also benefits restaurant workers; 7shifts gives staff remote access to their schedule, allowing them to manage their work hours and request shift swaps with colleagues through the app.

The company has received growing interest in the past year, tripling its revenue in the last 12 months. In the past six months alone, 7shifts has doubled the number of restaurant shifts scheduled through the app to 2 million per month.

CEO Jordan Boesch cooked up the idea for 7shifts in high school while helping his family’s Quiznos franchise.

Fast forward to 2013, the platform for scheduling, communication and labor cost control is used by more than 150,000 restaurant workers across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Australia.

“We’ve intentionally focused on restaurants since the beginning, on solving problems that go beyond just addressing the pains of the hourly worker,” said Boesch.

“By taking what we’ve witnessed around restaurant employees and managers, we’ve been able to fulfill our mission of empowering those working in the food service industry while helping operators better manage and reduce labor costs.”

Today, the 7shifts platform cuts scheduling time for restaurant managers down 80 per cent, helping them reduce overall labour costs up to 3 per cent.

“7shifts delivers more than just a highly effective, time-saving scheduling solution for restaurants to manage their staff,” said Tandem Capital partner David Wagonfeld.

“The platform also helps managers better connect and coordinate their employees and gives workers a performance indicator for future job prospects. On top of that, any restaurant operator that signs up for the platform is up and running in minutes.”

The Saskatoon-started scheduling tool is capitalizing on the significant U.S. restaurant industry—an industry that counts for 10 per cent of the country’s overall workforce.