Construction procurement is highly fragmented, manual, and opaque, forcing contractors to juggle multiple suppliers, endure lengthy negotiations, and deal with delayed payments. In Saudi Arabia, where trillion-dollar infrastructure and real estate projects are underway, these inefficiencies are even more pronounced.

To address this, BRKZ, a Riyadh-based construction tech startup, offers a tech-enabled managed marketplace that streamlines procurement and provides tailored financing solutions. The company has raised $9 million ($8 million in equity and $1 million in debt), bringing its total Series A funding to $17 million, with investors doubling down.

Existing investors, including Aramco’s Waed, BECO Capital, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Class 5 Global, Fluent Ventures, Knollwood Investment Advisory, MISY Ventures, RZM Investment and 9900 Capital re-participated. 

This follows the $8 million Series A1 round BRKZ announced last March.

Ibrahim Manna, a former executive at Uber subsidiary Careem, founded BRKZ in 2023 after experiencing these challenges firsthand.

“After Careem’s exit to Uber, I bought a family house in May 2020 and faced the inefficiencies of the construction supply chain—lack of visibility in material selection, uncertainty around the whereabouts of goods, and price volatility,” Manna told TechCrunch. “That frustration made me realize how outdated the industry is and that it presented a huge opportunity worth exploring.”

Sourcing construction materials

Manna says he met with over 100 suppliers and contractors across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan to get a clear picture of construction procurement challenges in the region. He found that while the market was broken everywhere, Saudi Arabia stood out as the most enormous opportunity, fueled by the country’s Vision 2030 and strong market tailwinds.

On BRKZ, contractors and factories can procure essential building materials like cement, steel, and wood. They benefit from transparent pricing, competitive quotes in just 20 minutes, and buy now, pay later financing, while factories can source raw materials and expand their customer base.

Similarly, the platform cuts through the usual hurdles of high transportation costs and coordination issues across regions. Over the past year, BRKZ has grown from 1,200 SKUs and 350 suppliers to over 7,000 SKUs and 1,100 suppliers. Since its Series A1, revenue has quadrupled in 2024, with more than 850 contractors and factories using BRKZ for major projects like King Salman Park, Neom, and the Red Sea Project.

BRKZ has aggressively expanded into over 40 cities across Saudi Arabia’s Central, Eastern, and Western provinces, boosting its RFQ volume from $170 million last March to $350 million (SAR 1.3 billion) today. The construction tech company intends to extend its reach to the North and South provinces, Manna noted.

Diversifying revenues

To stay ahead of the curve, BRKZ will be looking to diversify its revenue streams, which it currently generates through transaction fees and financing solutions, including buy now, pay later and tailored credit offerings.

Manna says that while BRKZ works with contractors, it wants to start dealing with developers and suppliers, a set of customers with different needs, materials, and pricing models, which require a broader range of sourcing options. The company plans to start importing hard-to-source construction materials directly from global markets, starting with China this year and later India and Turkey to meet this growing demand in the country.

“We’re quite excited about building or enabling a corridor of trade between China and Saudi as we start importing goods we know our contractors, suppliers and others would like to get from China. If materials are needed outside of Saudi, we’ll get them, white 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 marks a shift from BRKZ’s earlier ambitions to expand across the MENA region.

Notably, the move aligns with China’s efforts to strengthen ties with Middle Eastern markets amid uncertainty around U.S. trade policies. Given Saudi Arabia’s construction boom and China’s significant role in megaprojects like NEOM and The Line, BRKZ’s import strategy could benefit from government-level trade incentives and financing deals between the two nations.

Full-service construction ecosystem

Beyond materials, BRKZ aims to become a full-service construction ecosystem by addressing four pillars of any project: procurement (its core business today), financing (BNPL and credit solutions), workforce supply, and equipment procurement/rental. Manna, who was the managing director of global markets at Careem, says expanding into workforce and equipment services will make BRKZ an end-to-end platform for contractors and developers.

In addition, an important focus product-wise will be leveraging AI and machine learning to automate pricing predictability, purchase order generation, and other internal processes, improving efficiency for the company as well as contractors and suppliers. 

The newly raised capital will put the company on its way to becoming that comprehensive procurement hub it envisions, alongside driving expansion into Saudi Arabia.

“The BRKZ team has executed its product and operational roadmap to drive efficiencies in this rapidly scaling sector, and we’re excited to continue supporting them in their next chapter. BRKZ’s financing product will complement their digitized procurement platform and address customer cash flow challenges,” said Dany Farha, co-founder and managing partner at BECO Capital.

Since launching two years ago, BRKZ has raised $22.5 million, including $5.5 million from pre-seed and seed rounds. Manna says the company’s valuation has grown by 46% in the past year, reflecting 4x year-over-year revenue growth with positive unit economics.