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Bandhoo, a startup focused on the construction sector, has raised $1.1 million in funding from Unitus Ventures, with participation from Bharat Innovation Fund and other angel investors. This venture is a digital job tech platform that enables the real estate industry to source a workforce.

Founded by Prashant Gupta and Sridhar Sundaram in 2020, Bandhoo has onboarded over 35,000 construction workers and 6,500 small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contractors since February last year.

The startup will use this capital for the expansion of engineering team, product development, and scaling up operations.

According to the startup, it supports several real estate, infrastructure, and construction companies to improve their procurement and project operations, while saving on time and costs. Bandhoo is based out of Gurugram and Bengaluru.

On the fundraise, Prashant said, “We aim to onboard several large real estate and infrastructure companies, about 25,000 SME construction contractors and more than 150,000 construction workers by 2022–23. With such dramatically increased scale of supply, getting workers and labour contractors to any project site anywhere in India will be far easier and cost and time effective.”

Bandhoo said it aims to make the labour market more transparent and efficient. It has serviced more than 10,000 jobs and more than 500 tenders for SME contractors across more than a dozen cities in India.

A report by CMIE highlights that 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, with many of these layoffs in the medium and small-scale industries.

For Unitus Ventures, this is its twelfth investment in the job-tech category. Surya Mantha, Senior Partner, Unitus Ventures, said, “Construction workers form the backbone of the Indian economy. Bandhoo delivers impact at scale for this segment of workers and enhances the productivity and business results of SME’s by connecting them with workers and large builders and contractors alike.”