According to Shali Garg, CEO of Global Fire, the construction materials market is fragmented because it involves supply chain and logistics complexities. In the year In a 2021 survey by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo, most builders said the time it takes to get materials — and the cost of materials — are the top issues they face.
Garg explains that technology can help, which is why she launched Global Fire in 2020 with Ashish Chandra. GlobalFire, a business-to-business startup, aims to make it easier for U.S. building contractors to purchase “ready-to-install” materials such as countertops, quartz countertops, cabinets, natural stone and tile through a digital marketplace.
GlobalFair today announced that it has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed – consisting of equity ($12 million) and debt ($8 million) – along with Sama Capital, India Quotient, AUM Ventures and Stride Ventures. It raised the company’s total revenue to $22 million from a $2 million seed round last February.
“The idea of GlobalFire was something that Chandra and I felt strongly about, given the fragmented nature of construction businesses,” Garg said. “Around the world, global supply chain challenges are causing construction delays and labor shortages.”
Garg says she developed an interest in construction at an early age. Her family owned a quartz manufacturing business and she trained as an engineer, working for P&G before co-founding Global Fair at PwC and TransUnion. Chandra has worked as a director at PwC India and is an engineer with a background in infrastructure consulting, a start-up that has created blockchain-based insurance tools.
At GlobalFair, Garg and Chandra drew on their technical backgrounds to create a platform capable of predictive modeling. While the platform’s core product is a marketplace that connects contractors, distributors, fabricators, architects and construction companies to purchase materials, GlobalFire also provides a tool to automate construction material cost estimates from architectural plans and site shop drawings. Beyond that, the company hosts a Material Visualization application to help architects and designers understand how things will look once installed, as well as an automated enterprise resource planning system that — in the works — “provides faster response times to customers and suppliers across multiple geographies.” He said.
“[W]e has created an end-to-end synchronized supply chain from discovery to the final material arriving at the customer’s doorstep,” said Garg. “Our one-stop platform will revolutionize supply-side manufacturing, opening up pockets of manufacturing in India, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries to the global market. Providing construction contractors with an easy, cost-effective and seamless cross-border procurement experience is the largest technology-first We aim to be a global supplier of building materials.
To that end, GlobalFire says it’s working with “hundreds” of contractor and retail clients across the U.S., especially for multifamily and hospitality projects with budgets of $100 million to $500 million. Garg said Global Fair’s clients deal with large manufacturers and local distributors, exporters, retail chains that buy from distributors.
Garg attributed the company’s recent success in part to the pandemic and subsequent supply chain chaos. According to a report from Buildertrend, the average number of delays in 2022 has doubled compared to last year – due to fluctuating material costs, shipping fluctuations and labor shortages.
Construction technology startups have benefited extensively from the tailwinds of the past two years. In H1 2022 alone, funding in the sector reached $1.3 billion, according to Pitchbook – up 44 percent from H2 2021.
“Covid-19 has had a seismic impact on global production networks, fundamentally changing logistics costs and existing supply chains,” Garg said. “Businesses today are increasingly concerned about supply chain resilience and are therefore looking to expand their supplier networks… At GlobalFair, we are breaking down long cross-border supply chains and connecting contractors directly with suppliers.”
Garg said seeing “strong customer traction and growth” between the seed and Series A rounds, GlobalFire is maintaining “unit profitability” despite the current economic uncertainty. The new capital will be used to grow the company’s team (from 100 people to 200 by mid-2023), build products and expand Global Fair’s technology offerings to new markets, he said.
Bejul Somaya, partner at Lightspeed, shared via email: “The pandemic has placed strain on supply chains across industries, heightening the need for transparency, visibility and geographic diversity in global procurement of building products and building materials. By leveraging technology and combining a network of manufacturing facilities in India and Southeast Asia, Global Fair enables buyers in any country to find new offerings in an efficient, transparent and secure electronics marketplace.
