saas.group’s 28th acquisition brings shift planning and time tracking for small and mid-sized businesses into its HR portfolio.
HEILBRONN, GERMANY; November 10, 2026 – saas.group announces the acquisition of Aplano, the Berlin-based workforce planning software for small and mid-sized businesses.
Founded in 2020, Aplano brings shift planning, time tracking and absence management into one app, on the web and on every employee’s phone. Managers build and publish schedules in a few clicks, while employees check their shifts, swap them, enter availability and request leave. Working hours are recorded by phone, tablet or terminal and exported for payroll. Serving pharmacies, care services, retail, hospitality, logistics and cleaning businesses, Aplano is used by more than 2,500 companies.
The acquisition of Aplano marks saas.group’s 28th successful acquisition and strengthens the group’s HR software portfolio with a product built for teams that work in shifts.
David Gregorian, co-founder of Aplano, commented, “Aplano started in a pharmacy, where one of us was planning shifts in spreadsheets and sorting out every change over chat messages. We built the tool we wished we’d had, paid for it ourselves, and kept it simple enough that a team can start using it on day one. Today more than 2,500 businesses plan their weeks with Aplano, and the next stage needs more than three founders can give it. saas.group has done this many times before, and from the first conversation they cared about our customers as much as we do. For the pharmacies, care services and shops that rely on Aplano, nothing changes today. Same product, same people, with a much bigger team behind it.”
Tadeus Gregorian, co-founder of Aplano, commented, “We were looking for a simple solution for our own shift planning, so we built one. It soon turned out that what worked for us was useful to many other businesses too. By keeping Aplano straightforward and easy to get started with, we were able to onboard companies from very different industries. With saas.group, we see an opportunity to take Aplano further while preserving the simplicity that helped us grow in the first place.”
Tim Schumacher, Founding Partner at saas.group, commented, “Aplano is exactly the kind of company we love to back: founders who lived the problem themselves, funded the business from their own pocket, and built something thousands of shift-based businesses depend on every day. Shift work keeps pharmacies, care homes and shops running, yet many of these teams still plan their week in spreadsheets. Aplano gives our HR portfolio a strong product for people who don’t work at a desk, and we’re excited to help the team take it further.”
saas.group acquires promising software companies with a founder-friendly process in order to elevate their product, and their people, to the next level. Founded in 2017 by serial tech entrepreneurs, the company has acquired 28 companies to date, including Tower, Rewardful, Prefender, Jicer, Seobility, Timebutler, and most recently 3D AI Studio.
saas.group was advised by Lina Law and BA Group. Aplano was advised by FE International and EKM Law.
About saas.group
saas.group specializes in acquiring promising SaaS businesses with a strong product-market fit and annual recurring revenue (ARR) between $2M and $10M. Founded in 2017 by serial tech entrepreneurs, the company has acquired 27 companies to date, including MyWorks, Tower, Rewardful, Prerender, Juicer, Seobility, and Timebutler. With a team of around 400 people across 30 countries globally, saas.group provides products across Online Marketing, HR, Dev Tools, Customer Experience, and more.
saas.group was founded by Tim Schumacher (previously co-founder and CEO of Sedo.com, one of the world’s largest domain marketplaces), Ulrich Essmann, Tobias Schlottke, and David Khalil.
