Infra.Market an India-based technology company is redesigning the construction ecosystem through technology. The company is a B2B online procurement marketplace that intends to serve the real estate and construction materials industry.
The construction sector contributes 9% of the country’s GDP. The startup is helping construction companies save 5%-7% of their input costs. The company serves big brands such as Ambuja Cement, Tata Projects, RDC Concrete, and ACC Concrete. It is backed by major investors-Accel Partners, Tiger Global, Nexus Venture Partners.
Infra.Market was founded in 2016 by Aaditya Sharda and Souvik Sengupta and is headquartered in Mumbai, India. The company offers a centralized platform that aggregates clients’ demands, corresponding them with its supply chain along with affordable credit options and efficient delivery tracking facility, providing clients with fair pricing and enhanced technology experience.
Infra.Market’s journey so far
The platform has seen a rapid increase in demand as companies in the construction sector are increasingly shifting their procurement channels after the onset of the pandemic. Infra.Market is using technology to help real-estate and construction businesses to overcome delays and disruptions caused by the inefficiencies in the supply chain of the construction materials.
The startup has centers across the country and regional offices in Gurugram, Noida, Delhi, Kochi, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Nashik. Just after a year of its launch, Infra.Market in 2017 acquired more than 50 manufacturers and had on-boarded over 20 customers.
In 2018, the company raised angel round of $1M and acquired more than 200 manufacturers and partnered with over 70 logistics partners. Infra. Market also launched three new private labeled product verticals in 2018.
Infra.Market reached an ARR of $50 M in 2019. The startup took less than 20 months to touch the $1 billion valuation since raising a seed round from Accel Partners in 2019 and entered the coveted Unicorn club. It launched two more private labeled product verticals. In 2020, the company’s ARR doubled to $100M and it launched its Direct to Retail service along with export initiatives in three countries.
Overview of the services and products offered by Infra.Market
With highly-diversified offerings, Infra.Market provides wide variety of solutions and client services across the construction life cycle.
Cloud Manufacturing–
The company utilizes offsite manufacturing to bring in new efficiencies to the construction projects. Infra.Market offers a product-based approach and provides digitization of products and processes. The company provides value-chain control and integration with industrial-grade supply chains.
Its platform also offers real-time demand aggregation and gives higher capacity utilization of manufacturing partners.
Retail as a service–
The Supply chain innovations by Infra.Market are being made to usher in the next normal. Its retail as a service platform makes execution and merchandising data-driven and intelligent for its client. It also enables direct-to-brand retail reach for its customers while also offering distribution and logistics management. Infra.Market’s order management system includes complete secondary sales automation as well.
Equipment Banking-
The company offers its contractor an easy-to-use platform where they can manage mixed construction fleets by leveraging technology solutions to work more efficiently and productively. It provides real-time demand aggregation and higher-capacity utilization of idle machinery.
Infra.Market also offers a wide range of products for construction businesses such as- ready-mix concrete, fly ash, construction chemicals, sand & aggregates, and cement.
Infra.Market is bringing the unorganized construction materials and real estate industry online by leveraging technology
The company is looking to be a key player in the construction industry by bringing parity and transparency in pricing and taking the material procurement process online. To stay financially viable, construction companies in the country need to avoid cost-overruns and Infra.Market’s online material procurement process and right prices avoid these cost-overruns for them.
Since every construction project is unique and procurement of materials for each project requires strong negotiation and technical skills along with local-geographical know-how. However, most of the construction companies in India find it difficult to build-in house. Besides that, small companies when compared to large companies are deprived of the cost benefits on material procurement due to the small order size or due to involvement of multiple middlemen in the supply chain which is already fragmented and unorganized for various materials.
Infra.Market is redefining this as it brings transparency in the procurement process of the construction companies. With better pricing and credit facilities the company is enhancing the parity and productivity in the construction industry. The company’s centralized online market for construction materials and real estate offers an enhanced technology experience to its customers by aggregating client’s demands and matching them with supply chains.
