About Us | Planera

ABOUT US

Powerful,
yet simple to use

Planera provides the power of sophisticated project scheduling software, yet is as easy to use as a Whiteboard or Excel.

Who we are

A group of software entrepreneurs and construction executives focused on modernizing construction software

Our Vision

Build a global software company to make construction industry more efficient & profitable

Our Mission

Build beautiful, collaborative and intuitive software to reduce risk and save time during planning & execution phases of construction projects.

Meet the Team

Planera's founding team consists of seasoned entrepreneurs

and executives from software tech and construction industry

Co-founder and CEO

Nitin Bhandari

Nitin Bhandari is the CEO of Planera and has over two decades of business and technology development expertise in consumer as well as B2B products. Before co-founding Planera, Nitin was the CEO and co-founder of ZenLabs, an AI-powered solution that guides better screen time habits for a more balanced digital diet, which was acquired by Life360 in 2019. Prior to that, Nitin co-founded Skyfire, which was acquired by Opera Software in 2013.

Nitin earned his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Caltech in Pasadena, California.

Co-founder and CTO

Erik Swenson

Erik Swenson is the CTO at Planera and a technology visionary with more than two decades of experience in software and systems design. Before co-founding Planera, Erik co-founded Skyfire as CTO. Prior to that, he was the director of ASIC design and an original member of the ASIC design team at Extreme Networks.

The holder of more than 50 U.S. patents, Erik holds an M.S. in computational physics from San Jose State University in San Jose, California.

Co-founder and Product Strategy

Saif Lodhi

A seasoned industry expert, Saif is currently the Vice President at California Engineering Contractors, recognized as one of the West Coast's most reputable and reliable heavy construction contractors. Saif was also the lead contractor for the Bay Bridge demolition – an impressive feat of engineering that replaced San Francisco Bay’s iconic East Span in 2013 – as well as for San Francisco’s BART retrofit in 2019.

Saif holds an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of California Berkeley.

Head of Sales

Scotland Foss

Scotland has a passion for solving complex problems for construction professionals. Prior to joining Planera, Scotland was a sales leader at Plangrid where he helped the company transform the construction industry from paper to digital. After that, he was a sales leader at Autodesk followed by head of sales at Scratchpad.

At Planera, Scotland is passionate about helping project teams modernize their scheduling and planning process to drive positive business outcomes.

Co-founder and Head of Customer Success

Noor Lodhi

Noor Lodhi is the Head of Customer Success at Planera and a veteran in helping customers accelerate their business. Previously, Noor served as Director of Systems Engineering at software giant NetApp, where he was responsible for global enterprise accounts, select, mid-market, and healthcare business. Noor also served as Vice President of Solutions Engineering at InterVision, and Principal of WW GTM - AWS Storage at Amazon Web Services.

Noor has a B.S. from California State University East Bay.

KEY INVESTORS

We are backed by amazing investors

Ken Elefant joined Sorenson Capital in 2017 and leads the firm’s early-stage technology practice. Prior to Sorenson Capital, Ken spent more than 18 years in Silicon Valley at leading venture capital firms and over six years in operational roles at technology companies. He enjoys working closely with entrepreneurs to help them attack new market opportunities & gain access to key initial customers and partners. His efforts have led to recognition as one of the most connected names in tech.

Ken Elefant

Gokul is an active investor with over 125 startups in his portfolio. Early in his career, Gokul grew Google’s AdSense from zero to over $1 billion in revenues. He went on to found Chai Labs, an NLP company which was acquired by Facebook. Gokul then became Product Director for Ads at Facebook - scaling revenues from $0.75 billion to $6.5 billion - before joining Square, where he leads the delivery service Caviar.

Gokul Rajaram