Home renovation and construction in India is a challenging venture, given the unorganised nature of the industry. Every step, from ideation to completion, requires precise planning and execution.
, a Hyderabad-based startup, aims to simplify the process of building and renovating a house with a range of end-to-end construction services. The startup, incorporated by Sripad Nandiraj (Founder and CEO) and Rohan Reddy (COO), started operations in 2019.
How it began
Sripad and Rohan were former classmates. For a long time, they had been looking to build a company that would simplify lives. An opportunity came in 2013, when Rohan and his family were looking to renovate their house. Sripad and Rohan got together to evaluate the construction market, the raw materials needed, and the vendors involved.
That’s when they realised that there was no company that offered quick and easy construction solutions with all the requisite elements such as labour, raw materials, and other resources. This gave birth to the idea of a company that would simplify the construction process by bringing together all the entities involved in building a house.
Sripad and Rohan took a leap of faith and quit their full-time jobs to start ‘Hocomoco’, which later gave way to the name ‘Wehouse’ for better brand recall.
End-to-end services
Wehouse is a tech-powered aggregator platform that enables customers to build their homes from scratch by connecting them with people in the construction industry.
It offers a stack of services for residential construction— project management, architectural structure, design, décor and interiors of smart homes, and legal permissions.
The startup’s process involves figuring out the client’s needs and the cost, setting up meetings, implementing tasks, monitoring, and final delivery.
Wehouse has tied up with brands in the construction industry to ensure a streamlined flow of resources across the supply chain. It has partnered with around 1,000 suppliers of construction materials.
Sripad says the company operates on the four-pronged mantra of transparency, time saving, tracking, and adoption of technology. “This allows the maintenance of superlative quality of projects and punctual project delivery.”
The founder says the startup draws up a plan with a proper schedule and workforce estimate upfront, so that the project is completed on time.
Role of technology
Technology frameworks and web services play a crucial role in the areas of customer management, material management, and vendor management.
“With the help of tech, we avoid manual errors and ensure there is saving of time and money. The supply chain is also made easier, which means no wastage of material and effective use of natural resources,” says Sripad.
Transparency and tracking
Wehouse provides an e-monitoring feature that lets customers check online to see how far along their work is and how much material is being used. It also assures the customer a secure project site with surveillance to prevent theft and damage and updates customers through photos and videos of the work in progress.
“We ensure our customers have access to all the documentation, on-site CCTVs, and detailed weekly reports. Customers can easily communicate with all the teams such as design, project management, and finance. They can also utilise the Q&A feature on our platform to understand the project progress,” says Sripad.
Each project that Wehouse assists with goes through more than 200 quality checks; there are quality sieves at every checkpoint, says the founder. For example, slab-cast cubes are sent to a lab to evaluate their strength.
Projects in Hyderabad and Chennai
The startup has completed over 200 projects in Hyderabad and over 400 projects are in progress in Hyderabad and Chennai.
The company says it has completed 1 million sq. ft. of built-up area as of now. According to the founder, the Wehouse platform witnesses a footfall of over 75,000 monthly visitors.
In August 2022, Wehouse expanded to Chennai with the aim of accruing a built-up area of five lakh sq ft by March 2023. The startup says it has around 120 projects in the city.
Revenue model
Construction project management contributes 50% to Wehouse’s revenue, while materials management accounts for 30% and interior design projects contribute 20%.
The startup charges Rs 1,599 per sq ft in Hyderabad and Rs 1,900 per sq ft in Chennai, depending on labour costs, material costs, and land prices.
Whenever a customer selects materials via Wehouse, the startup gets a commission from the construction material company.
Wehouse says it witnessed a revenue growth of 295% in FY 2019–20, 482% in FY 2020–21, and 363% in FY 2021–22. It projects a revenue of Rs 120 crore by the end of this year, at a growth of 620%.
Construction market
According to GlobalData, the Indian construction market was valued at $609.6 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach an average annual growth rate of more than 6% during 2023–2026.
The home construction service sector has many players such as RHUMBIX, , and .
Funding and expansion
The founders of Wehouse had invested Rs 5 lakh from their personal savings to bootstrap the startup.
In May 2022, Wehouse secured $1 million in a Pre-series round from Anthill Ventures and a group of angel investors to upgrade its technology platform, hire, and expand. The startup plans to close another round of funding soon.
The startup is planning to expand its operations to five more cities and its team size by adding 100 employees. It also plans to enter into strategic partnerships with 500 partners by March 2023.
