Now, a portal that sells construction materials

Are you looking to renovate your kitchen, but don’t have the time or energy to run around the city buying materials? A one-stop shop, Supplified, will come to your rescue.

The brainchild of real estate company Omaxe’s CEO Mohit Goel and SPR Buildtech Director Nalin Saluja, the portal aims to organise the construction materials market using the power of the Internet.

“This is the most unorganised sector with no transparency. There is no standard price for a product — it varies across areas and vendors. We want to organise this space,” Goel says.

The construction market, especially in NCR, is fragmented. For example, Chawri Bazaar specialises in tools and hardware, Chhatarpur in flooring items, Bhagirath Palace sells electrical items. “Want to bring this all in one portal to offer convenience to the buyer,” he adds.

The portal targets the home owner for the renovation market as well as SME contractors. It sells raw material as well as finished goods ranging from cement, steel, doors, paints, water purifiers, tiles, building cleaning and maintenance supplies, plants and home décor, among others.

“We are also working on an enterprise model which will be a B2B initiative for medium and big construction contractors. We are trying to disrupt the conventional way of procuring materials where a team calls a few vendors and the lowest bid gets the contract. We want this bidding to happen online through us,” Goel says.

The portal, which currently operates in NCR, registered sales of ₹5 lakh in November, ₹11 lakh in December, and ₹20 lakh in January, Goel says. At present, it has 225 vendors in its database.

The size of the construction market is huge. According to Goel, NCR registers monthly sales of construction material worth ₹5,000-10,000 crore. “In the next 3-years, we want to register sales of ₹250 crore a month on our portal,” he says.

Saluja and Goel together have invested ₹2 crore in the start-up. In the next 2-3 months, the company looks to raise $15-16 million through a round of VC funding, which will be used for expansion in north India, technological upgrade and marketing initiatives. The start-up will also launch a mobile app by March.