Ruffly, a startup based in Scotland, announced today that it had closed a £300,000 pre-seed funding round led by Techstart Ventures.

Founded by software entrepreneur Matt Farrugia, the company is on a mission to eliminate the cost of software planning failures, changing the expectations of what can be predicted using data-led insights.

He says that current project management practices largely rely on the processes and experience of individual project managers, without really considering if there are other data sources that can improve outcomes. Ruffly is an attempt to radically reset expectations around how we forecast and track these types of ambiguous project deliveries.

Farrugia, who founded and ran software development agency Bemo, sold it in 2020 before going on to start Ruffly with a founding team of ex-agency colleagues.

Farrugia said:

“The digital economy is 22% of global GDP and yet it’s an inside joke that software and IT projects often overrun. Studies have shown that two-thirds of projects have planning failures. That’s a trillion dollar collective failure of our industry.”
“The world is increasingly project-centric but many project managers still rely on spreadsheets for planning. If you think about that for a second, it’s astonishing that the standard tool for planning is the same as it was pre-internet.”

He added: “I’ve built software with hundreds of clients and there’s no-one who thinks software planning is solved. I think there is so much under-served potential in estimation, prediction, automation and communication. Companies using Ruffly can improve efficiency by 25% – equivalent to an extra day a week for each engineer in the team.”

Ruffly is currently in public beta with customers worldwide using the product and providing valuable feedback. The funding will support the growth of the team and the development of the product for its full launch.

Calum Forsyth, investor at Techstart Ventures, said:

“We are delighted to lead Ruffly’s pre-seed round. Matt has great passion and knowledge of software planning, and we have been hugely impressed by the ambition of the Ruffly team.”

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Company:
Ruffly is a software planning startup based in Scotland. Its mission is to eliminate the cost of software planning failures, changing the expectations of what can be predicted using data-led insights. Companies using Ruffly can improve efficiency by 25% – equivalent to an extra day a week for each engineer in the team. Founded in 2020 by Matt Farrugia, the product is in public beta with a full launch coming in summer 2021.

Matt Farrugia Bio:
Matt Farrugia, is a Scotland-based software entrepreneur. He founded and ran software development agency Bemo, selling it in 2020 before going on to start Ruffly with a founding team of ex-agency colleagues. He is an early stage investor in Scottish AI startups Pasabi and Machines with Vision and an active member of the Scottish startup ecosystem.