The construction sector in Indonesia is large and fast growingbut a lot of purchasing is still done the old-fashioned way, via phone calls and text messages. Juragan material wants to make things easier with a B2B marketplace for building materials from composite suppliers.
The company announced today that it has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Go-Ventures, with participation from Susquehanna International Group (SIG).
The new capital will be used for recruiting, increasing Juragan Materials’ market share and technology improvements.
Founded in 2021, the company’s marketplace currently has more than 9,000 products and more than 180 brands, including structural, architectural, mechanical and electrical products. It is intended for use by contractors and project owners and helps them find material faster.
Before launching Juragan Materials, Tito Putra, CEO and co-founder, was a director of a construction company.
All the other founders of the startup also have experience in the construction industry. Chief operating officer Graceila Putri was a product associate at Amazon working on growth for a contracting company. Chief marketing officer Ricky Fernando previously worked in marketing and relations as Mortindo, a mortar manufacturer, and chief procurement officer Meichael Surja was an architect and contractor of residential products for over 15 years.
Putra said it often took him days to purchase a single item, including the time he spent checking prices and availability from multiple suppliers.
He also handled deliveries that could not be tracked and arrived late and offline payment and billing processes that were long and frustrating. This resulted in high working capital costs and potential losses from overstocks and oversupply or undersupply.
Juragan Materials was founded to simplify the last part of the supply chain for the construction industry.
“We recognized that construction is a huge market that is still very conventional and untapped by technology, resulting in a lot of inefficiencies in the industry,” Putra said.
The new capital from Juragan Materials will be used to enhance its platform and launch more features, scale customer and supplier acquisitions and improve supporting infrastructure, especially financing and logistics, Putra added.