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Plancraft receives seed funding & subsidies to digitize the craft industry

September 7, 2022March 5th, 2025

Hamburg, September 07, 2022 – The SaaS start-up Plancraft receives €1.9 million from institutional investors in its seed financing round and further €200,000 in subsidies. The Hamburg-based trio of founders is thus firing up the marketing of its invoicing software, which is focused on simplicity, in the craft market, which has been little digitalized to date. The vision behind Plancraft is getting closer: to create the basis for businesses to be economically successful.

Enormous potential in construction and trades

In Germany, approximately 500,000 craft businesses work in the construction and finishing trades1. A large proportion of these are equipped with IT solutions that, technologically speaking, date from the last three decades. A shortage of skilled workers and demographic change are increasing the pressure on companies to become more efficient. Founder and idea generator Alexander Noll experienced first-hand in his father’s carpentry shop near Hamburg which basic processes are crucial and where craftsmen:inside lose valuable time.

“When a quotation takes several hours to complete, people in the businesses suffer enormous stress and can’t concentrate on their craft”, Alexander Noll reports.

Funding to enable scaling

With a web application for office work designed for user-friendliness, Plancraft is now bringing a breath of fresh air to the trade, which is not very digital in places. In order to actively shape the digital transformation of the industry, the Plancraft team now secured €1.9 million in seed funding, following initial federal funding in 2020 and an angel investment in 2021.

“A very motivated team, a simple product as well as one that is in demand by customers, and a potentially gigantic market convinced us. Plancraft has prepared to scale and we are happy to be on board.”

Louis Heinz, Senior Investment Manager at High-Tech Gründerfonds, summarizes the investment decision. In addition to existing investors and HTGF, three other VC companies BitStone Capital, XDECK and Realyze Ventures invested. The Hamburger Investitions und Förderbank is supporting the innovative start-up with a further 200,000 euros as part of the InnoFinTech funding program.

Modern technologies for contemporary work

In times of greater networking and new work culture, the need for flexible and decentralized working is growing. With their approach, the Plancraft team focuses, on the one hand, on reducing the technical burden for the chronically overburdened target group. By eliminating the need for an initial installation or manual updates, new technological foundations are created in the companies thanks to the cloud. Second, users can work on their preferred devices, whether tablet computers, Apple laptops or smartphones.

“We all depend on the skilled trades, today and especially in a climate-friendly future. With the help of the new capital, our team can now provide the thousands of small businesses with a modern tool,”

announced Julian Wiedenhaus, co-founder and CEO of Plancraft.

About Plancraft

Plancraft enables craftspeople to focus on what they love. With apps designed for user-friendliness, Plancraft makes office work easier and saves valuable working time when calculating quotations, writing invoices or communicating with employees. The cloud-based app impresses small craft businesses with its unparalleled performance and is the only tool that is fully optimized for use on tablet devices. With a starting price of 29 euros per month, large investments in IT are the past and thus support the urgently needed start-up culture in the skilled trades. Already in 2019, the three founders Alexander Noll, Richard Keil and Julian Wiedenhaus found together. Meanwhile, about 16 employees at Plancraft GmbH pursue the common mission: “Less office. More craftsmanship.”

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