Buildzar
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Buildzar (Buildzar.com, run by Gurgaon-based Glow Homes Technologies Pvt. Ltd) was a business-to-consumer online marketplace for construction materials, launched in September 2015 by co-founder and CEO Vineet Singh (former EVP of 99Acres.com). It aimed to be a one-stop shop for home construction and renovation, offering cement, steel, sand, bathroom fittings, electricals, tiles, paint, bricks and blocks, stone aggregates and water tanks, plus a turnkey home-building service ('Build Your Home with Buildzar'). In January 2016 it raised $4 million in a pre-Series A round from Dalmia Bharat Group managing director Puneet Dalmia (in his personal capacity). It shut down in December 2016.
02 / Buildzar FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Consumer traffic and revenues never picked up: traction was good initially but unit economics were weak, and even after a mid-2016 pivot from a pure-play B2C e-commerce model to a lead-generation subscription model, momentum did not follow. The company then failed to raise a Series A. India's sudden banknote demonetization in November 2016 delivered the knockout blow, since the real estate business traditionally ran on cash - and the company was only a little over a year old with no cushion to ride out the transition. Co-founder and CEO Vineet Singh said the e-commerce model required substantial investment in supply chain, logistics, last-mile delivery and payment collection, making the business unviable in the near-to-mid term.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
Buildzar ended operations.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Buildzar launched in September 2015 as a B2C online marketplace for construction materials, run by Glow Homes Technologies Pvt. Ltd, co-founded by Vineet Singh.
- 02
In January 2016 it raised $4 million in a pre-Series A round from Puneet Dalmia (managing director of Dalmia Bharat Group, investing personally).
- 03
By mid-2016, within nine months of launch, the company pivoted from a pure-play B2C e-commerce model to a lead-generation subscription model - but consumer traffic and revenues still did not gain momentum.
- 04
The company failed to raise a Series A round, which was needed to build out supply chain, logistics and payment collection.
- 05
India's banknote demonetization in November 2016, which hit the cash-based real estate business hard, was the knockout blow; Buildzar shut down in December 2016.
- 06
No reliable realized loss figure with clear subject, period and basis has been disclosed; funding raised is not a loss.