Founded in December 2021, Suri (West Bengal) headquartered in Runway Technologies helps construction contractors to find their best tender shortly and easily, submit tender bids and procure raw materials online. Currently, the platform operates through WhatsApp and soon launching its Android app and website.
Digitization has been underway in India for a long time now, but it got a boost with the launch of Jio. Also, Covid-19 has forced all industries to go digital. Historically, the construction industry is less penetrated through technology, and it brings a lot of scope for innovation through digitization.
The pandemic helped us realize the potential of moving businesses online. However, growing businesses online can be difficult, especially for small contractors as they are not that tech-savvy.
Few companies in this sector have been growing tremendously during the lockdown during Covid-19. Offbusiness and Infra market to name a few. But these companies focus mainly on big contractors and metro city projects. Small contractors are excluded from this innovation. Suri-headquartered Runway Technologies is working to solve this problem by introducing a WhatsApp-first platform for digitization. Small contractors use WhatsApp for their personal and professional communication already. The WhatsApp-based go-to-market strategy has helped Runway to acquire contractors in a faster way and as result, already more than 2,000 contractors are onboarded within 2 months from starting operation in May 2022. Founded in December 2021 by Satyendra Nath Brahma, Jayanta Mandal, Arpan Mondal, and Tridip Pal, the startup is aimed at helping its user base grow their businesses through project sourcing and procurement of raw materials online.
It currently provides a fully operational WhatsApp bot where contractors can self-onboard and start receiving relevant tenders published by government and private organizations. The contractors can also procure raw materials for their ongoing and new projects from already 50+ onboarded suppliers on the Runway platform.
Satyendra Nath Brahma explains that before starting up, he had been working as a contractor in the construction segment. As part of his work, he spoke to many small and medium-size contractors and understood their pain points in procuring projects as they are not able to discover new tenders through websites due to their discomfort working with websites. They mainly rely on local cyber cafes for any new tender information. He also saw the challenges faced by small contractors in procuring raw materials at competitive prices. He realized that all these processes are time-consuming and they incur unnecessary cost
Giving an example, he explains, “In Suri, my hometown, there is one contractor who has good connections with contractors from Kolkata and receives tender and raw material supplier information. There are other contractors as well, but they do not get enough business because they are not receiving the right information about tenders and raw material suppliers.”
Today, the startup claims to have acquired over 2000+ Contractors across India in their platform providing tender information of more than 8,000 tenders every day on the WhatsApp platform. They have also onboarded more than 50 raw material suppliers catering needs of the onboarded contractors.

Resolving challenges faced by small and midsize c
The co-founder explains that many businesses, especially small-sized businesses, rely on traditional ways to do business, which is not helping them grow.
Satyendra Nath and other co-founders met through a common connection and they were discussing the challenges in the construction business. As the pandemic hit, they wanted to build something to help the contractors to grow their business cost-effectively and easily. Then they realized that in smaller cities, there were challenges in getting things like raw materials, manpower and required machinery, etc.
To solve this problem, Runway has developed a one-stop solution for every contractor. Contractors can not receive all relevant tender information and tender documents, materials, and manpower in a single platform.
Speaking about the target audience, Satyendra Nath Brahma clarifies that while the aim is to empower small and mid-size contractors, the digital services can be used by small and mid-size material suppliers to expand business digitally to receive orders across India.
Product details
Runway Technologies offers a WhatsApp-based platform ( Android app coming soon) that can be used by contractors and suppliers. After registration, they can search tender information, order & Inquiry raw materials, machinery, and manpower within a minute...
“We create the first initial version, which takes less than two minutes for a contractor to create its profile. Users can log in to WhatsApp and make their profiles. The platform is very easy to use and Users can update the profile, requesting us for other services like bid Submission, material procurement, and in future business loans,” Satyendra Says.
“We started from a district in West Bengal and then we started getting queries from other districts and states,” he adds.
Business and more
According to Satyendra, the company generated a revenue of Rs 3.5 million (Rs 35 Lakh) in one year. Speaking about the business model, he explains that Runway operates on a B2B SaaS model where the client businesses purchase annual subscription packages starting from Rs 2,500 up to Rs 15,000 per year. The subscription offers access to all tenders published across India and suppliers for cost-effective procurement. The platform is also exploring a partnership with financial institutions for working capital loans for its onboarded contractors.
The co-founder reveals that the bootstrapped startup is now considering scouting for funds for tech team expansion and building a full-fledged supply chain team across eastern states in India.