Surge 05

Powerplay

Launched

October 2020

Published

June 2021

Powerplay

Founders

Iesh Dixit

Shubham Goyal

Co-Investors

Accel

India Quotient

Powerplay is a mobile-first, vernacular construction site management app that enables project managers and workers to communicate and collaborate more effectively. The app helps them track their progress, deliverables, and payments across projects. Powerplay’s mission is to digitise India’s construction industry by connecting stakeholders via its platform, with the aim of leading to faster and better construction projects across the country.

India’s construction sector currently employs 16% of the country’s working population. It is also the second largest contributor to GDP, but ranks one of the lowest when it comes to digitisation. Many construction projects bring together different stakeholders – architects, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and labourers – all working together on the same project. They also often work on multiple projects at the same time. With so many stakeholders working on the same project, many contractors struggle to maintain visibility over their work, a problem compounded by the low tech solutions many currently use. The construction sector is dominated by small and medium contractors, who typically keep track of progress with pen and paper, and communicate information to other teams over WhatsApp. This makes it difficult and cumbersome to track construction projects.

Using the Powerplay app, contractors can upload photos for a visual reference for various partners and stakeholders, keep track of tasks that have been completed, manage issues to rectify, and even keep tabs on payments that are pending. Powerplay also helps teams manage material and budget allocations, and tracks employee attendance. By using the platform, construction businesses and contractors are able to provide their clients with better customer service by sharing visibility into project completion. Since its launch, Powerplay has been used by over 10,000 contractors across 800 Indian cities.

Powerplay was founded in Bangalore in December 2019 by Iesh Dixit and Shubham Goyal. Both Iesh and Shubham graduated from IIT Roorkee. Iesh previously built a B2B online marketplace that was used by 250 manufacturers and over 4,000 retailers, while Shubham worked at Samsung, where he was part of the team that built the Samsung S10 camera software. The camera received the highest DXOMARK score in the world, and over 40 million units were sold.