Construex, an Ecuador-based software-as-a-service marketplace for the construction and design industries, has secured $4.6 million in seed funding. Zacua Ventures and Fifth Wall co-led the round along with ABSeed and Terracotta Ventures.
Roberto Arroyo started the company with his brother, Nicolás Arroyo, in 2019 after working in his family’s construction business as well as operating his own housing projects in Ecuador for over 15 years.
Some of these projects included managing the supply of materials and leasing services to housing and apartment complexes, which is where he got the idea for Construex.
“I was struggling to buy supplies, so I started talking to my brother, who has been shopping for the construction company for a long time, and we started to figure out how to help other developers find a solution,” Roberto Arroyo told TechCrunch . .
The Arroyos started Construex in 2019 to digitize the construction industry in Latin America, a market Arroyos estimates is worth over $520 billion. The company is among a handful of supply chain startups in this region, for example Tül in Colombia.
The biggest problem is the lack of information, Arroyo said. Just 4% of construction suppliers are equipped with technology, so there is an opportunity to connect construction product suppliers with customers in a way that doesn’t involve calling for supplies, he said.
Construex offers a free version of its platform and receives revenue from transactions made on the platform as well as additional services through a subscription model.
Construex co-founders Roberto Arroyo and Nicolás Arroyo. Image Credits: Construex
“We offer a very good CRM to our suppliers,” Arroyo said. “There are virtual reality showrooms and integration via WhatsApp.”
The company has more than 80,000 registered suppliers offering over 700,000 products ranging from architecture to engineering and furniture. It also has a team of 48 people in two offices.
They operated the company for nearly four years and reached profitability as it expanded into Chile, Guatemala and Argentina. It has about 500 customers on the subscription model, and the company doubled its revenue this year compared to 2022, Arroyo said.
As the company grew, they decided to scale faster and seek venture capital to expand further into Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, also adding Brazil to the pipeline.
Construex recently opened an office in Mexico City. Arroyo aims to bring 1 million suppliers to Construex in the next few years and expects to quadruple revenue next year.
Meanwhile, this is ABSeed’s first investment outside of Brazil, according to Geraldo Melzer, ABSeed’s co-founding partner.
“Roberto Arroyo’s track record alongside this market gives him a privileged perspective on the real needs of this industry,” Melzer said in a statement. “We understand that the problems they are facing today are common to us. Together with Terracotta, a partner fund specialized in proptechs, we want to bring them closer to our market players and, with many hands, build the bridge for them to come here in the near future.”
