Constr Up raises $885K to digitalise Brazil's construction material stores
What's the deal? Constr UpDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Brazilian startup that helps construction material stores sell through digital channels, has raised R$5M (roughly $885,000) from Vellore Ventures, the corporate venture arm of the Vellore Group, which operates in the lighting and construction tools segments.
Founded in 2019 in Águas de São Pedro, São Paulo, Constr Up built an AI-powered assistant called Lia that handles customer service around the clock — from product queries and recommendations to quotes and sales. Customers can interact via text, audio, or images.
The startup claims it can boost digital sales by up to 75% and overall revenue by up to 30% for the stores it serves. Its clients include Brazilian chains such as Lojas Sansão, Bocão, Agroboi, and Belenus.
Why now? This is Constr Up's second funding round, following a R$15M investment from the Belenus Group in 2021. The new capital coincides with the launch of a quote-tracking feature that the company says can convert up to 60% of quotes into actual sales.
"Only 2% of sales close on first contact, so 98% need follow-up. But 44% of salespeople follow up once and give up," said Adauto Dias, Constr Up's chief executive officer. "We built a solution to fix that bottleneck."
What could go wrong? Construction retail in Brazil remains one of the country's least digitalised sectors. Convincing store owners to change entrenched habits is a slow process, and the modest round size may limit how fast Constr Up can scale.
Competition from larger retail-tech and conversational-commerce platforms could also intensify as AI tools become more accessible.
The signal: Constr Up's modest raise underscores how early the digitalisation of Brazil's construction retail sector still is — and how corporate venture arms like Vellore Ventures are stepping in where traditional VC has been slow to act. Classified as "early growth" on Dealroom, the startup's trajectory from a R$15M round in 2021 to a smaller R$5M follow-on suggests a capital-efficient, revenue-driven approach rather than a blitz-scaling play, a model increasingly favoured in Latin America's maturing startup ecosystem.
Read more: baguete.com.br
