Soil Connect program allows sale of local construction materials through digital marketplace
Soil Connect has started to roll out a QuickStart program to partner with local construction materials suppliers across the U.S. – including quarries, recycling facilities, landscape suppliers, asphalt and cement plants, and sand and gravel locations. Soil Connect's QuickStart program creates digital storefronts for local material suppliers, creating the ability to sell materials directly to SoilConnect users.
The QuickStart program helps drive listings of available local materials while providing suppliers access to a suite of tools to more effectively market and sell products. As part of the program, Soil Connect builds a company profile for local businesses to "claim" and take ownership of. The material supplier can then adjust the types and quantities of material that the business wants to market as part of their digital storefront on the Soil Connect marketplace. Soil Connect will initially launch the program on July 27 before rapidly rolling it out to markets across the U.S.
Soil Connect has also secured new funding led by new investors Stellifi VC and GS Futures. Both firms launched their venture capital units in the last 12 months, and both were born out of real estate and construction firms. GS Futures is an early-stage corporate venture arm of GS Group looking for investment and business development opportunities in climate, energy transition, construction, and retail innovations. Stellifi was formed by the partners of OTH Capital.
"We are pleased to launch this new QuickStart program and welcome Stellifi VC and GS Futures as investors to further accelerate the growth of our platform," says Cliff Fetner, founder and CEO of Soil Connect. "As longtime construction professionals, we founded Soil Connect to address many of the frustrations we had experienced in trading and transporting soil, aggregates, and other construction materials – and our reputation has preceded us in markets across the country as our colleagues have proactively joined and started transacting on our platform. However, as we've scaled, we've recognized that there is an untapped opportunity to create value for local materials suppliers as well."
"These sellers reflect the industry in that many still operate on analog systems and for the most part do not have the capability or budget to develop and manage an online store," says Jonathan Alvarado, chief growth officer at Soil Connect. "In claiming their digital Soil Connect storefronts, suppliers gain immediate, hassle-free access to our rapidly growing community of construction professionals and a more efficient way to move product, while providing added supply liquidity to our platform to drive increased transaction volume – it's truly a win-win for all stakeholders."
Recently, Soil Connect built a new tech stack to support its marketplace, allowing Soil Connect to introduce new services and features to its community. This will include the ability to triangulate and secure transport for materials within the app, as well as enhancing The Daily Dig job site monitoring service.
