Building is one of the many oldest and cumbersome companies in India, with around 80 per cent of the area managed by unorganized and conservative builders.
From unaccounted enterprise delays and money flow issues to shift in demand from shoppers, debt burden and lack of transparency – it is full of points. Even more so after the pandemic, construction work affected by labor shortage and disruption in raw material supply due to lockdown restrictions.
Jayesh Rajpurohit, a civil engineer at IIT Roorkee, believes so.
Belonging to a Marwari family engaged in the construction business for years, he was quickly struck by the dangers of the sector. Jayesh was acutely aware that the business was suffering from “extreme technical losses”.
The Bengaluru-based startup recognized 4 key pain factors: a) lack of transparency in contracts, b) mid-project worth growth, c) surprising delays, and d) advance funding demanded by contractors. “We knew we needed a fully managed market like Citi Firm or Ola to address these issues,” says Jayesh.
The problem was to make the building standardized and predictable “across initiatives, cities and contractors”. And this can only be achieved with expertise.
Finish-to-end building market
Brick & Bolt developed an end-to-end online marketplace that connects prospects with contractors, architects, designers, carpenters and various building professionals with a curated set of service suppliers.
Owners will have to refill a request type based on their needs, get a price estimate from the platform, and guide the service by paying the price.
To remove ambiguity in manufacturing timelines, Brick & Bolt built a proprietary AI-led engine that predicts work schedules and possible supply dates for each enterprise. Unlike traditional operators, the platform additionally imposes penalties (1 percent monthly of the enterprise value) on service suppliers in case of “non-permissible delays”.
Brick & Bolt’s expertise also allows for high quality testing and real-time monitoring of initiatives using PC Imaginative and Presentation, manages workflow updates from web site engineers to final supply, and allows communication between all events. allows.
In an effort to offset price increases and bring about cost transparency, Brick & Bolt operates on an escrow model, where customers switch cash for each step of the enterprise. The cost is released to the contractor only after that phase is completed.
This not only helps in building trust among the stakeholders, but also prevents price escalation and motivates the contractors to take initiatives ahead of time.
Since its inception, Brick & Bolt has curated over 280 contractors and booked over 800 initiatives across Bengaluru and Mysore. Earlier in July, it was launched in Hyderabad, where it has already signed 30+ contractors.
The startup primarily focuses on B2C residential building, with typical enterprise value ranging between Rs 7-8 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. Brick & Bolt has plans to launch in Chennai, Delhi and Pune, and will guide 1,500 initiatives by the end of the year.
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