Sourav Chakraborty and Ashutosh Kumar-Jha founders of cemX, India’s first e-commerce offering a wide range of choices for customers to purchase cement in an affordable price minus the middlemen. Customers can order from the website https://www.cemx.in/ as well as from their nearest e-stores where e-dealers would be available. CemX has partnered with India’s premier NBFC ZESTMONEY, to launch a first-of-its kind holistic approach for quick and affordable EMI options for their end customers.
Incubees: Tell us about your product or services?
cemX: cemX: A cement marketplace with an e-commerce focal point – “Best Price minus the Middlemen”. cemX is India’s first online platform where a customer can buy cement of different brands available in the Indian market at the best competitive price. It is an e-commerce aggregator platform that efficiently redesigned the structure of an orthodox cement distribution channel in India thereby democratizing the purchasing power of the consumers namely the middle- and lower-class segments of Indian society guaranteeing the best purchase price minus the middlemen. Registered and certified by Startup India, cemX empowers the Government of India’s ‘Digital India’ initiative.
Incubees: What makes your product/services unique and what competition do you see in India and globally?
cemX: The cement industry in India was formally established almost 12 decades back in 1904, with all its legacy establishments, logistics, and supply chain specifically designed to cater to a civilization that was untouched by digital and internet revolutions. With the advent of the newer 21st century, the cement industry strangely chose to continue with its conservative and orthodox mechanism of human supply chains for endpoint cement sales. This collusive human-middlemen approach merged with the ever-growing demands of the Indian middle-class, has led to huge price-arbitraging at the retail points of sale.
cemX, India’s first cement e-commerce, is a B2B online procurement marketplace for cement, with an e-commerce focal point. It is an aggregator platform that facilitates a direct supply channel between the large dealerships of cement and the end consumers that may be a real estate company, builders or small retailers lower down on the supply chain in the B2B domain while it also targets individual customers. The present Offline supply chain for various materials is fragmented, orthodox, and unorganized. Therefore, by taking the procurement process of cement online into the Digital domain we aim to achieve parity and transparency in cement pricing thereby removing any arbitrage for offering economies of scale on cement pricing. Procuring cement online at the right price is helping companies, individuals, and retailers to avoid cost overruns to a very large extent. In the usual offline domain, no single cement retailer can sell a wide variety of brands and it’s a heavily consolidated sector challenged with very strong new-entrant barriers without a huge capital investment.
The B2B domain is starkly differentiated from the B2C segments, as discounts don’t attract the former but a better price with cash discounts on the bags purchased as that is only available to large dealers/wholesalers of individual brands. It is usually a volume game as the rate to buy 1000 bags of cement is way more economical than buying 50 bags of cement. As an e-commerce aggregator and facilitator, cemX sets itself as the only intermediary digital channel aiming at cost-effectiveness and savings for the BOP sections only in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India.
To appropriately capitalize in the lending-driven cement procurement industry, cemX has partnered with India’s premier NBFC ZESTMONEY, to launch a first-of-its-kind holistic approach for quick and affordable EMI options for their end customers. This is the first time when a low-cost EMI credit option shall be offered to any Building Material customer to cope up with the financing challenges of small and medium builders in Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 cities of India.
Currently operating in Kolkata, Sitamarhi in Eastern India, cemX has realized a revenue of over INR 1.2 crores (GMV) emerge as one of the foremost e-commerce start-ups from West Bengal. cemX witnessed a consistent monthly average growth of over 120% since January ’20 and a yearly sales turnover of over 3500%. It is selected in the Top10 Best Start-ups in West Bengal by CEOInsights, Top 25 new start-ups of India in 2020 by Timesnext group, Top 6 Con-tech companies in India by BUILT WORLD, Germany, and the Best Con-tech company of Asia by BUILD magazine, UK. Recently was selected in the Top 100 Start-ups of South Asia in 2020 by Lemon Ideas Innopreneurs 2020.
As an aggregator platform cemX facilitates a direct supply channel between the large distributorships of cement and the end consumers that may be a real estate company, builders, sales all retailers lower down on the supply chain in the B2B domain while it also targets individual customers on the B2C side.
We ensure-
- Bringing different brands under one umbrella in a digital easy-to-use setup. Exclusive single-source online distributor minus the middlemen.
- Order from anywhere at best competitive price to market
- Provide a bargain free and transparent market (centralized price system).
- Hassles and bargain free cement deals disrupting the orthodox supply chain with demographic limitations.
- Help in cost-savings to contractors and end-users by allowing cement purchases at the lowest competitive price.
- Guaranteed revenue recovery in the e-commerce digital domain.
- Price Uniformity maintained to avoid arbitrage negotiations.
- Near-Zero Investment cement store/retailer.
- Faster and reliable Delivery.
- Cement procurement savings of at least 7.5% for the local businesses and the BOP sections of the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India.
- Enabling a D2C platform to empower manufacturers to directly sell to their consumers.
- Consumers can buy, track and pay through a single channel at the best rate. They can also leverage cemX’s easy EMI options for their purchases.
Unlike major Investor, backed e-commerce companies who are offering an entire building-materials supply gamut through a match-making algorithm with existing brick-mortar dealerships, we are deliberately product-specific and geographically focused. Instead of taking a similar match-making approach, we are instead disrupting the orthodox archaic human supply chain with a digital e-commerce alternative that is further ensuring cost-benefits to the end-users (approximately 7.5-10%) while we realize a margin of 4-6% per bag of cement sold.
As an indirect competition, there are a few companies like BuildSupply, MaterialTree, Infra Market, etc. who operate with a digital convenience model, however, these existing platforms sell an entire gamut of building materials online acting as a match-making platform and do not focus on cement alone. The cement prices offered do not differ from common offline market prices available at the retailers whereas we are leveraging towards a D2C approach disrupting the human supply chain thereby guaranteeing the best rates. We are the first movers in this manufacturer-collusive cement procurement domain, where over the last couple of years we are devising methods of disruption through an e-commerce business focal point. We anticipate big players like Udaan and alike too to make heavy inroads into this domain by 2025 considering the huge untapped opportunities prevalent; we would rather want to consider a Strategic Merger to become the exclusive cement supply channel for them.
On the other hand, offline manufacturer-affiliated cement
Dealers / retailers (our direct competitor) offer competitive prices but are low on convenience and are geographically restrained. Hence, by eradicating middlemen in the Supply Chain, through Digital Presence-High Convenience-Best
Rates, cemX is uniquely positioned to capture the targeted cement market in India guaranteeing price uniformity.
Incubees: What are the challenges you see in the market at this point in time?
cemX:
- Price-arbitraging and overpriced retail prices of cement at the points of sale.
- No single-point dealer/retail shop that provides a wide variety of brands. Only dedicated company affiliated products. There is an unnecessary redundancy of cement brick-mortar retailers in a single locality with no one-stop location.
- Heavily lending and credit-based industry at the point of sale. One of the major issues we encountered while approaching small-scale builders and contractors was the incumbent credit-recycle approach to cement procurement as for which they were willing to pay a high retail price for the cement procurement. Hence to appropriately capitalise in the lending-driven cement procurement industry, cemX has partnered with India’s premier NBFC ZESTMONEY, to launch a first-of-its kind holistic approach for quick and affordable EMI options for their end customers. This is the first time when a low-cost EMI credit option shall be offered to any Building Material customer to cope up with the financing challenges of small and medium builders in Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities of India. The usual cart size varies from INR 5000 to INR 2,00,000 with a repayment period between 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months respectively at 0.5% interest rate.
- Geographically consolidated industry with little scope for new entrants/manufacturers without a hefty capital expenditure. The industry is heavily collusive with incumbent manufacturers controlling the major stake in the market in sales and availability. cemX aims to challenge this oligopolistic behavior by democratizing the scalability and sale of Tier-2 or local brands guaranteeing more visibility in the market, optimizing establishment-logistic costs while reducing offline expenses for supply chain establishments through our D2C model.
Incubees: Tell us about your team and what inspires them?
CemX:
- Sourav Chakraborty, the Co-Founder, holds a B. Tech degree in ECE from WBUT, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Boston University, and an MSC in Management from Imperial College London, graduating in 2019. Sourav has 3.5 years of full-time experience working for one of Europe’s premier EPC companies, Maire Tecnimont in Italy. Sourav also holds Chartered Manager certification from CMI, UK, Member of the Royal Institute of Navigation, UK, Chartered Engineer from IET, UK & IEI, India, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Commerce, and Manufacturing (FRSA).
- Ashutosh Kumar Jha, Co-Founder of cemX holds a B. Tech degree in IT from WBUT, Diploma in Business Analytics, Economics & Financial Accounting from Harvard Business School Online. He has attended Innovation and Entrepreneurship programs at Shenzhen University, China, and Harvard University, USA. During his undergrad days, he ventured into setting up two distinct start-ups as well (Knockstarter & Jha Ventures). Currently, he is also pursuing ALM in Management from Harvard University.
- Mr. Pijush Kanti Chakraborty – Non-Executive Director. B.E. in Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. AMP from Harvard Business School, USA. 35 years of rich executive management experience in the EPC industry across the globe. Ex-Alghanim International, Ex-Techint Cimi Montubi, Ex-Usha Martin Ex-DVC.
- Dr. Shrinath Jha – Executive Director. B.Ed. from IIT-BHU. Ph.D. from BR Ambedkar Bihar University. Associate professor of Sanskrit in JLNM College, Sitamarhi, 30 years of experience in the construction and building material industry (wholesaling and distributorships).
- Mr. Rajarshi Bhattacharya – Head of Sales. BSc (Honours, Eco-Stats-Maths) from Calcutta University. PGDM from IISWBM, Kolkata. Over 18 years of experience in Quality control and Materials management across continents.
- Mr. Girdhari Agarwal – Head of Finance & Compliances. Chartered Accountant & CS.
We at cemX have efficiently recognized a problem, and we are dedicated to curating a solution for this orthodox industry through a technology-driven business model with an e-commerce focal point. We believe we can be the catalyst for a digital restructuring of this collusive industry by cutting out middlemen and acting as the digital intermediary for cement purchases at the best rates compared to the market. Hence, achieving transparency in cement prices and avoiding cost-overruns for our clients of at least 7.5%, while we realize a margin of 4-6% per bag of cement sold.
Incubees: Where do you see your product/service reaching in the next five years?
CemX:
- The Indian cement market is valued at $36.7B in 2019 and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10. 6% to $67.2B in 2025. The minimum commission charged by each of the 3 middlemen on a sale of cement amounts to 3.5-4%
- By 2025, cemX aims to operate full-fledged in 50 cities across Eastern India (Odisha, NE, Bihar, UP, West Bengal) equal to approximately 12% of the geographical market equivalent to a minimum of $5.9 million in revenues.
- We want to remain geographically agnostic to the Eastern India region as we feel this part has been extremely untapped and underserved by the start-up disruptions. More so because we also anticipate the region to achieve Horizontal economies of scale in the Real estate and infrastructure domain over the years.
- Only the premium brands through their high-cap marketing campaigns control and create the market share of demand, we want to leverage collaborative negotiations with growing/new manufacturers, Tier-2 brands, and local brands facilitating a D2C approach to ensure their market visibility and availability catering to the affordability of the growing middle class.
Incubees: Do you have plans to raise funding to grow your business or allow your business to organically grow?
cemX: From June 2019, we have bootstrapped our operations in Bihar West Bengal. We are operating full-fledged in two cities, Sitamarhi and Kolkata, selling 9 brands of cement to a recurring growing clientele of 38 Small-Medium Developers and 5 independent Retail points. Currently, we are perfectly placed with a steady-revenue inflow, to raise an initial/seed round of investment that would help us with expansion, marketing, and workforce hiring.
Incubees: What are the challenges you face as a startup?
cemX:
- Government encouragement for startups at the regional level should be a more encouraging and benefitting ecosystem, to help cater towards Government projects.
- Local business-syndicates at times prevent competition to their market hold.
- We operate in a domain that needs a major overhaul in behavioral psychology governing buying patterns.
- Societal acceptance is an everyday individual challenge as working on a startup is distinctly ‘non-rewarding and high-risk’ in the initial days, than doing ‘Business’.
- The startup culture in Bihar and West Bengal (overall Eastern segment) is not so developed, accelerated and complementing as compared to Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and alike.
Awards:
- Top 25 new startups of India in 2020 by Timesnext group.
- Top 6 Con-tech companies in India by BUILTWORLD, Germany
- The Best Con-tech company of Asia by BUILD magazine, UK.
- Recently was selected in the Top 100 Startups of South Asia in 2020 by Lemon Ideas Innopreneurs 2020.
- Contech startup of the year by Innovation & Excellence Awards 2021; Corporate LiveWire
- Top 10 Best Startups in West Bengal of 2021 by CEOInsights Magazine.
- Editor’s Choice select for StratupIstanbul acceleration program.
- Selected amongst the Top 500 Startups in India by Kuberan’s House.
Media:
- https://www.builtworld.com/db/company/cemx
- https://yourstory.com/mystory/five-real-estate-investment-tips-entrepreneurs
- https://timesnext.com/ashutosh-kumar-sourav-chakraborty-transforming-cement-industry/
- http://theindianpreneur.com/cemx-bangalore/
- https://startupsuccessstories.in/success-story-disrupting-startup-cemx/
- https://thestartuplab.in/how-cemx-is-digitally-transforming-indias-cement-procurement-and-is-cementing-indias-future/
- https://startupanecdotes.com/know-cemx-game-changer-in-indian-cement-industry/
- https://www.scoopearth.com/cemx-indias-first-online-market-platform-for-cements-of-multiple-brands/
- https://insellers.com/blogs/interviews/inseller-interview-with-cemx/
- http://businessnewsthisweek.com/business/cemx-launches-new-credit-feature-in-india/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdeqeSP4qrA
- https://www.constructionweekonline.in/business/14953-cemx-launches-new-credit-feature-in-india
- https://www.ceoinsightsindia.com/vendor/cemx-a-oneofitskind-cement-aggregator-platform-cid-2498.html
To know more and to get in touch: https://www.cemx.in/
