Appfire, an enterprise collaboration software company that enables teams to plan and deliver their best work, announced the acquisition of German company 7pace, creators of the top-selling app for Azure DevOps, 7pace Timetracker, which recently launched on GitHub. This acquisition marks a strategic expansion for Appfire into the Microsoft ecosystem, with continued staffing, product expansion, and go-to-market investments planned for both Azure DevOps and GitHub products. In addition, Appfire and 7pace will bring this leading solution to the Atlassian ecosystem, enhancing and expanding time management offerings for customers
“This acquisition represents a continued investment in our customers and an opportunity to disrupt the legacy time management market”
This latest addition to Appfire’s purpose-built portfolio is driven by a mission to equip and connect every team so they can plan and deliver their best work. Designed and built by developers for developers, 7pace Timetracker incorporates AI and machine learning to seamlessly capture time data within the developer’s workflow. This technology gives individuals and teams the real-time insights they need to improve the way they work across multiple platforms.
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“At Appfire, we follow teams, not tools,” comments Randall Ward, Co-Founder and CEO of Appfire. “To drive success and ambitious transformation, product developers need to spend more time innovating. 7pace has developed an AI-driven experience that teams not only need, but want, and we’re thrilled to welcome Marc Schaeffler and the 7pace team to Appfire.”
Time tracking is often perceived as a necessary but high-friction activity in development environments, with negative perceptions of managerial surveillance, lost productivity, and unintuitive platforms. Timetracker was built to not only relieve these pain points, but to actively shift the culture associated with time tracking to address the needs of the developer. The product identifies individual patterns and uses underlying work item data to guide developers, flipping the script on an outdated, contextually unaware time entry model.
Capturing and aggregating time data across platforms helps work flow across tools and teams, aligning perfectly with Appfire’s product strategy.
“This acquisition represents a continued investment in our customers and an opportunity to disrupt the legacy time management market,” comments 7pace Founder and CEO Marc Schaeffler. “We have searched for a partner that aligns with our values, not only internally with our people, but on the level of service and respect we show our customers, and we immediately felt at home with Appfire.”
The entire 7pace team — many of whom are local to 7pace’s headquarters of Munich, Germany — has joined Appfire. This new location will allow Appfire to more directly support customers and channel partners within the German market.