To help, Plane lands $4M seed round too
Companies seeking comprehensive project management and issue tracking tools have a plethora of choices, including long-standing solutions like Atlassian’s Jira, which has served software development teams for over two decades. However, many alternatives, such as Basecamp, Asana, Linear, Monday.com, and Trello, though diverse, share a common drawback—they are proprietary platforms lacking the flexibility and code transparency crucial for modern enterprise settings.
Enter Plane, a new player aiming to distinguish itself from established incumbents by offering an open-source product development and management platform. Positioned as a tool for managing “issues, sprints, and product roadmaps with peace of mind,” Plane emphasizes the advantages of being open source, particularly in terms of privacy, security, and control over data. According to Plane’s Co-founder and CEO, Vamsi Kurama, the ability for customers to host the software on their own infrastructure enhances adoption, providing protection from the public internet. Additionally, the transparency of code, auditability, and open conversations about development further reassure customers about the platform’s stance and longevity.
Founded by brothers Vamsi and Vihar Kurama, Plane originated as an internal tool to address challenges in managing clients at a previous IT consulting company. After a year of development, Plane officially launched, offering features like customizable project layouts, issue planning and tracking, sprint planning with insightful progress metrics, and modular project breakdowns for specific teams or personnel.
To support its ongoing product development, Plane has secured $4 million in a seed round funded entirely by OSS Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in startups that create commercial open source alternatives. This funding will help Plane introduce new features, such as Vault for securely storing and sharing authentication “secrets” for engineering teams. The company also plans to expand its platform to Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS clients by the middle of the next year.
In terms of monetization, Plane is exploring various pricing plans, including managed services on its hosted cloud plan and enterprise-grade features for self-hosting. The company is already engaging with enterprises interested in a managed cloud version.
Plane has adopted the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) v3.0, a copyleft license, making its product open source with certain restrictions. While some enterprises may have strict policies against AGPL, Plane aims to attract businesses through community contributions and emphasizes its commitment to making contributions easy. The company is open to dual-licensing or custom licensing options for those seeking a more closed license in the future. Overall, Plane is proactively future-proofing its business model, emphasizing community participation while balancing the need to protect its bottom line.
