Table of Contents
Purchasing of the construction is very fragmented, manually and opaque, forcing contractors to juggle multiple suppliers, to endure long negotiations and tackle delayed payments. In Saudi Arabia, where trillion dollar infrastructure and real estate projects are underway, these inefficiencies are even more pronounced.
To tackle this, BRKZA Riyadh-based Bouwtech startup offers a technical managed marketplace that flows purchasing and offers tailor-made financing solutions. The company has collected $ 9 million ($ 8 million in equity and $ 1 million in debts), which means that the total Serie A financing is brought to $ 17 million, where investors have doubled.
Existing investors, including Aramco’s Waed, Beco Capital, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Class 5 Global, Fluent Ventures, Knollwood Investment Advisory, Moly Ventures, RZM Investment and 9900 Capital Re-Participed.
This follows on the $ 8 million Series A1 Round BRKZ announced last March.
Ibrahim MannaA former director of Uber -Daughter Careem, founded BRKZ in 2023, after experiencing these challenges, firsthand.
“After the exit from Careem to Uber I bought a family home in May 2020 and I was confronted with the inefficiencies of the construction chain of the construction – a number of visibility in material selection, uncertainty about the residence of goods and price volatility,” said Manna Techcrunch. “That frustration made me realize how outdated the industry is and that it offered a huge opportunity that was worth exploring.”
Building materials Purchasing
Manna says that he has met more than 100 suppliers and contractors in the VAE, Saudi Aarabia and Pakistan to get a clear picture of the challenges of building purchase in the region. He discovered that, while the market was broken everywhere, Saudi Arabia stood out as the most enormous opportunity, fed by the vision of the Land 2030 and strong market in the market.
Contractors and factories can buy essential building materials such as cement, steel and wood on BRKZ. They benefit from transparent prices, competing quotations in just 20 minutes and now buy, pay later financing, while factories can find raw materials and expand their customer base.
Similarly, the platform cuts through the usual obstacles of high transport costs and coordination problems in different regions. In the past year, BRKZ has grown from 1,200 SKUs and 350 suppliers to more than 7,000 SKUs and 1,100 suppliers. Since the A1 Serie, the income has quadrupled in 2024, with more than 850 contractors and factories that use BRKZ for large projects such as King Salman Park, Neom and the Red Sea Project.
BRKZ has been aggressively extended to more than 40 cities in the central, eastern and western provinces of Saudi Arabia, which stimulates the RFQ volume of $ 170 million last March to $ 350 million (SAR 1.3 billion). The construction technology company plans to expand its reach to the northern and southern provinces, noted Manna.
Diversification of income
To stay ahead of the curve, BRKZ will want to diversify its income flows, which currently generates it through transaction costs and financing solutions, including buying, paying later and tailor -made credit offers.
Manna says that although BRKZ cooperates with contractors, it wants to deal with developers and suppliers, a set of customers with different needs, materials and price models that require a wider range of sourcing options. The company is planning to start importing difficult building materials directly from the global markets, starting with China this year and later India and Turkey to meet this growing demand in the country.
“We are quite enthusiastic about building up or making a trading between China and Saudi, while we start importing goods that we know that our contractors, suppliers and others would like to come from China. When materials are needed outside of Saudi, we get them, label these goods and sell them to contractors, developers and suppliers in Saudi. Our focus is to go deeper into Saudi Arabia, “he shared. This is a shift from BRKZ’s earlier ambitions to expand over the Mena region.
The move is particularly in line with China’s efforts to strengthen ties with markets in the middle, in the midst of uncertainty surrounding American trade policy. Given the construction tree of Saudi Arabia and the important role of China in mega projects such as Neom and De Lijn, the import strategy of BRKZ could benefit from trading stimuli at government level and financing agreements between the two countries.
Full-Service Construction Ecosystem
In addition to material, BRKZ wants to be a full-service building ecosystem by tackling four pillars of each project: purchasing (its core activities today), financing (BNPL and Credit Solutions), Workforce Supply and Equipment Procurement/Rental. Manna, the director of the global markets at Careem, says that expansion of workforce and equipment services from BRKZ will make an end-to-end platform for contractors and developers.
In addition, an important focal products will be to use AI and Machine Learning to automate the predictability of the price, generating purchasing orders and other internal processes, improving efficiency for the company and contractors and suppliers.
The newly abolished capital will be on its way to becoming that extensive purchasing hub that has in mind, in addition to stimulating expansion to Saudi Arabia.
“The BRKZ team has carried out its product and operational route map to stimulate efficiency in this fast scale sector, and we are delighted to continue to support them in their next chapter. The financing product from BRKZ will supplement their digitized purchasing platform and tackle the challenges for the cash flow of customers, ”said Dany Farha, co-founder and managing partner at Beco Capital.
Since the launch two years ago, BRKZ has collected $ 22.5 million, including $ 5.5 million from pre-seed and seed rounds. Manna says that the appreciation of the company has increased by 46% in the past year, which is a reflection of the turnover growth of 4x on an annual basis with positive unity economy.