Bandhoo is a Construction Technology solution suite that integrates all the participants of the Construction ecosystem – real estate companies, infrastructure companies, large general contractors, specialized contractors, MSME contractors, building material suppliers, and construction workers.
In construction, time is money. Bandhoo’s suite of modules enables easy discovery of suppliers, subcontractors and construction workers to ensure work never stops at any construction project. Cost is optimized through a world-class procurement solution and project monitoring / reporting solution that gives real-time access to analytics and insights on status.
Solution
A CMIE report highlights how the real estate and construction industry took the biggest hit in employment during April–May 2021. It saw employment shrink by 8.8 million on a base of about 64 million in March 2021. Most of the employment in this industry is informal. Manufacturing industries took a hit of 4.2 million jobs on a base of 30 million. It is possible that most of these were in the medium- and small-scale industries.
Born during the pandemic, the startup is distinct in its identity as a part of the construction tech segment. Bandhoo helps builders and infrastructure companies save costs and time in their project and procurement process. The platform brings the ease of e-commerce to construction by enabling the entire value chain using cutting-edge technology.
Construction is a USD 200 billion market in India and so far hasn’t adopted much technology in its operations. It is also a growing sector due to investments in real estate and infrastructure. The construction sector is the second-largest employer in India (after agriculture) with about 60–70 million construction workers and 5–7 million micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) contractors. Bandhoo has seized on the opportunity to build a tech-centric business that really smoothes out the discovery and interaction among all participants in the construction ecosystem: builders, infrastructure companies, general contractors, MSME contractors, building-material suppliers and construction workers (source: NSDC-KPMG sector report).
Impact
Bandhoo’s mission is to help increase income opportunities for the MSME construction contractors and construction workers. To that end, Bandhoo is digitizing and integrating the entire Construction value chain – starting from the Builder/ Asset owner at one end of the chain to the individual Construction workers at the other end. Bandhoo can potentially impact the livelihoods of 5-7 mn MSME construction contractors and 50-70 mn Construction workers.
Investors participating in the round
Unitus Ventures
Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund
InfoEdge Ventures
Prashant Gupta, Founder-CEO
Prashant is a seasoned corporate executive who has now become an entrepreneur. He was a Partner at McKinsey & Company Inc., Head of Chairman’s office at Aditya Birla Group, CEO of abof – all about fashion, and CEO of Emaar India. He has deep experience across construction and technology. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad. 
Sridhar Sundaram, Founder-CTO
Sridhar has more than 25 years of technology experience across several varied stints, including an 8-year stint at Google across their SV office and Bengaluru. He is also a serial entrepreneur who built and sold a company in the late 90s, and has more recently dabbled in edTech and health-tech (before starting Bandhoo). He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and Cornell University of the USA. 
