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Indonesia ’s structure industry isgrowing quickly , driven by residential and industrial building , alongside infrastructure development plans by the government . source skilled labor is still a clock time - intensive process , however , and often relies on personal web and lengthy recruitment efforts . The founders ofGravelwant to alter that by making it easier to find workers and other construction professionals . The Jakarta - establish inauguration announced today it has raise $ 14 million .
Investors let in New Enterprise Associate ( NEA ) , Marvell Technology Group co - father Weili Tai , Cadence Design System executive chairman Lip - Bu Tan , SMDV , East Ventures and other strategic investors . Gravel is NEA ’s first investment in Southeast Asia . While Gravel is currently focused on Indonesia , it project to enter international markets and will utilise its funding on business expansion .
Gravel started in 2019 as an app to connect users with grammatical construction worker . The political platform now has four master feature article — irritate Construction for hiring daily construction workers , Gravel Borongan for building with lump sum contracts , Gravel Maintenance for on - requirement home repairs and Gravel Material for order tools and textile .
Gravel enunciate it go through 45x tax revenue ontogeny between 2020 and 2022 , and now has 1.7 million worker on the weapons platform . It has been used for 6,000 project in 20 Indonesian provinces , rank from residential building to large ones like LRT Jabadebek ( Greater Jakarta Light Rail Transit ) , Jakarta International Stadium , Pelni Hospital and the Keong Man IMAX Theatre .
The inauguration ’s Colorado - founder are chairman Nicholas Sutardja and co - CEOs Georgi Ferdwindra Putra and Fredy Yanto . Before set in motion Gravel , Putra calibrate from U.C. Berkeley with a civil and environmental engineering schoolmaster and spent time working in the construction diligence , where he realise challenge with finding labor .
“ There were numerous occasions of need and provision inefficiency in a great construction labor where hundreds of workers were pose unwarranted getting pay while the projection was on short pause and other juncture where extra actor were urgently needed but it took weeks to gather them , ” he enjoin . Sometimes workers were sent back to their villages to raise C of additional doer in a time - consume process . seek a result to the problem , Putra and Yanto begin working on Gravel with their own funds in 2017 , before launching it in 2019 after securing funding .
Skilled labors are often source through personal networks or by recruiting large groups of people from the same hamlet who unremarkably work out as farmers or fishermen , but are hired for short - term project . On Gravel , users are couple with serving supplier through Gravel ’s Personalized Job Feed , which the startup order bring down time spend discover the ripe people from about two weeks to minutes .
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Before starting on Gravel , worker demand to have prior experience . They also go through screening in the form of on-line tests and skill assessment , and periodic preparation and growing sessions .
everyday construction workers are paid within 24 hours after finishing a project through Gravel ’s requital system . Putra says quick defrayment helps workers ’ financial resilience , in turn improving their carrying into action at workplace . He total that other benefits of using Gravel for workers let in access to uninterrupted chore opportunities , workshops and certificate training , a loyalty and fillip political platform and health and well - being sustenance . For service providers , meanwhile , Gravel can increase their visibility to client , attract a wide-cut reach of projects and body of work package , give them access to partners and services in their supplying and demand Sir Ernst Boris Chain and more efficient matching to potential client .
Gravel also includes real - fourth dimension analysis of project activities that gives an overview into a project ’s current stage of construction , how many worker it ask and what variety of material and equipment are required . This helps with guest budget figuring and decision fashioning . Future plan admit a predictive model for monitor mental synthesis progress .
In a statement , NEA better half and head of Asia Carmen Chang said , “ Gravel is our first Southeast Asia investing and we ’re aroused about the company ’s potential to elevate Indonesia ’s construction industry through applied science . ”
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