SpaceMantra looks to become unicorn company in the next two years

NEW DELHI: Anoop Kumar Mittal, founder of SpaceMantra, an online marketplace for the
construction and interior industry, hopes to become an unicorn company in the next two years
and is also planning to raise money in the next couple of months.
In conversation with ETRealty, Mittal talked about the reasons to start a new venture and his
future plans

In my 40 years of experience out of which 35 have been with NBCC, I have realised that
construction industry in our country is still very unorganised. Majority of the construction
materials except for cement and steel are still majorly dominated by unorganised players. This
means there is no quality control, no fixed prices, no delivery time, etc.
Although things have changed in the last 5-7 years under the current government, still we have
miles to go to make the industry completely organised. Minsdset of policy makers, builders,
contractors have changed and now they are more open to use of technology in the construction
sector.
So to solve the problem in the construction material segment and learning from the e-commerce
industry, I decided to start SpaceMantra in November 2021.
What are the major hindrances for an online marketplace catering to construction
materials?
One of the biggest hindrances is the mindset of people. While we have become familiar with the
e-commerce products, selling construction products through online market place is still a niche
segment. This can only be resolved by providing high-quality services which is on time and
creating awareness.
Another challenge is the procurement department of contractors and builders which has a set
way of functioning and hard to convince. But as we go further builders are realising that such
marketplace have more transparency, better variety, quality and low cost, which is why they are
turning to us.

Which is the segment that you are catering to?
Currently we are catering to B2B segment, especially focusing on contractors and developers
and those building their own houses.
One of the biggest challenges in dealing with construction materials is the unavailability
of set parameters or standards, how do you plan to solve that?
We have in-house quality control team who ensure that certain standards are met in every
product we procure. We also have buyback policy in case consumer feel the material is not upto
the standard.
How has been the growth from the time company started?
With the kind of response we have received so far and the scope that this segment offers, I am
hoping that the company will turn unicorn in the next of couple of years. We are also looking to
raise money in the next 2-3 months.
Currently we have 400 users on our platform. We have tied up with 300-400 original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs) and have over 50,000 listed products. Every day we are adding 5,000
new products or SKUs.
We have 78 employees in the company and are supplying across India.
As of now we are working and procuring products based on the demand however we want to
store majority products in our warehouses. In fact we have opened one warehouse in Noida and
we plan to open 3-4 more warehouses in the National Capital Region (NCR). We will also focus
on North East and South in the future