Legion raises $22 million to automate workforce scheduling

Legion, a startup developing retail scheduling and analytics software, today raised $22 million. The fresh capital comes as the company’s business continues to accelerate during the pandemic, according to CEO Sanish Mondkar, a former SAP Ariba exec. Legion claims to have onboarded over 18,000 locations since April, as companies continue to adopt the platform’s contact tracing and satisfaction survey features.

Scheduling is often a challenge for retailers even without a health crisis. And irregular shift work is associated with longer weekly hours, which can hurt morale. Studies show fewer than 11% of workers on “regular” work schedules report “often” experiencing work-family conflict, while as many as 26% of irregular or on-call shift employees report issues.

Legion’s retail demand forecasting product automatically learns patterns and applies them to the future, taking into account things like local events, weather, seasonality, and customer-specific promotions. Leveraging a family of over 50 AI models and feature sets, Legion identifies lulls in labor needs and decreases staffing accordingly, according to Mondkar.

Retail forecasting fuels Legion’s labor optimization tool, which attempts to suss out schedules based on anticipated demand by pulling data from point-of-sales systems and other sources. Mondkar says the tool is smart enough to distinguish between tasks that occur regularly (like opening, closing, and cleaning) and demand-based tasks that are dependent on truck delivery days and sales volume (like merchandising).

Mondkar says the schedules Legion generates respect budgetary considerations like total wages and hours worked. A built-in productivity metric lets managers view and pencil in top performers during peak periods or events, while filters enable them to schedule employees across locations and assign badges like “key holders” or “service pro” for organizational purposes. Managers can also draw on schedule compliance templates that factor in pay laws and visually flag out-of-compliance areas.

Legion also offers a toolset that allows employees to specify when, how much, and where they want to work. From a mobile app, employees can opt in to receive companywide announcements and manage their schedule and location preferences. This same app allows managers to see labor forecasts and shift swaps or approve requests for time off.

On the payroll side, Legion tracks line items like overtime and meal premiums while letting companies establish rules, such as restricting early, late, and unscheduled clock-ins. The platform also auto-aggregates attendance logs with schedules and integrates with physical timekeeping systems, as well as with third-party payroll solutions Workday, Paylocity, ADP, and Gusto.

Mondkar says Legion — which competes with startups like Clockwise — has grown by nearly 300% over the last 12 months across both the mid-market and enterprise in segments like retail, hospitality, fitness, food services, and entertainment. As of today, the company’s customers include Cinemark Theaters, Dollar General, and SoulCycle.

Legion Stripes led the series B round, with participation from Workday Ventures, Dollar General, NTT Docomo Ventures, and existing backers Norwest Venture Partners, First Round Capital, XYZ Ventures, and Webb Investment Network. The round brings Legion’s total raised to over $32.5 million, following a $10.5 million series A in September 2017.