The major part of the construction industry in India is highly unorganised and managed by orthodox developers. And usually, the entire experience of construction, from finding the right professionals to the right price and the optimal timelines, tends to be opaque and a huge drain on resources and time. 

The sector has been riddled with issues like – lack of transparency, unaccounted project delays, cash flow problems, changing client demands, and debt burdens.

Solving issues in construction using technology, Bengaluru-based startup Brick&Bolt is fixing the huge broken market. Brick&Bolt, with its tech-enabled construction marketplace, is bringing trust, predictability, and transparency in housing projects.

Startup Story: Brick&Bolt | Tech-based Construction Platform

Founding Team

Founded by Jayesh Rajpurohit, along with his nephew Arpit Rajpurohit, Brick&Bolt is an e-commerce platform that uses cutting-edge technology and state-of-the-art systems and processes to make home and commercial construction simple, transparent and reliable for customers.

The end-to-end online marketplace makes the construction process seamless by connecting customers to a curated set of service providers, enabling transparent pricing, managing projects to ensure adherence to approved quality & timelines and also levying penalties on the service providers in case of any delay. 

The process is augmented by an AI-based engine predicting the work schedules and managing the quality & progress of projects using computer vision.

How Brick&Bolt Started?

Coming from a family that struggled while constructing their own houses, Jayesh, a civil engineer from IIT Roorkee, was acutely aware that the construction industry suffered from a “severe tech deficit”. 

He, along with his nephew Arpit Rajpurohit, met with different contractors to understand the problems faced by customers. On researching, they found many tangible pain points, and the segment had low competition. They identified issues like lack of transparency in contracts, mid-project price escalations, unexpected delays, and advance payments demanded by contractors. 

So, to bring trust, predictability, and transparency in housing projects, the duo started the tech-enabled construction marketplace Brick&Bolt. 

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USP Of Brick&Bolt

Brick&Bolt offers an end-to-end online marketplace connecting customers with a curated set of service providers, including architects, designers, contractors, carpenters, and other construction professionals. 

Brick&Bolt has built a proprietary AI-led engine that predicts work schedules and potential delivery dates for every project to remove opacity in construction timelines. Additionally, the construction platform levies penalties (1% of the project cost per month) on service providers in case of “non-permissible delays”. 

Aiming to make the construction simple, transparent and reliable, the startup provides quality checks and real-time tracking of projects using computer vision. Brick&Bolt also manages workflow updates from site engineers from day one to the final delivery and allows communication between all parties. 

The tech-enabled construction platform operates on an escrow model to solve price escalations and provide payment transparency. Here, customers transfer money for every stage of the project and payment is released to the contractor only after completion of that stage.

The platform is easy to use, and homeowners just have to fill up a request form depending on their requirements. After that, homeowners receive a cost estimation from the platform and book the service by paying a fee. 

Jayesh says,

“We have built an in-house price quotation mechanism and a 310-point quality assessment system. All project managers have an inspection app in which they have to key in site updates thrice a week. We believe there should not be any grey area between the contractor and the customer.”

Present Situation Of Brick&Bolt

Started with a small team, Brick&Bolt has now grown to a team of 100+ people. Brick&Bolt has curated more than 280 contractors and booked over 800 projects across Bengaluru and Mysuru since starting its operations. The startup launched its operations in Hyderabad this July and has already signed up 30+ contractors. 

On the revenue side, Brick&Bolt claims to have witnessed a 15X growth in revenues since 2018. Last year, the tech-based construction platform started a construction material marketplace targeted at B2B customers and commercial real estate projects. For the same, the startup tied up with multiple vendors to offer 1,000+ SKUs on its platform.

The startup charges a project booking fee and also earns a commission on each transaction between customers and contractors. 

Future Plans

Brick&Bolt aims to hit an annualised GMV of $5 billion and have a presence in India’s top 15 cities by 2025. Additionally, the startup has aggressive expansion plans and aims to launch in Chennai, Pune and Delhi and book 1,500 projects by the end of the year. 

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