Tell us about your venture? What is the story behind its inception?

SolutionBuggy is a pioneer in the Indian manufacturing consulting industry.  Incepted in 2016, we are now India's largest manufacturing consulting platform dedicated to small and medium-sized businesses. Our cutting-edge, AI-powered platform enables industries and consultants to collaborate and work on projects together. Through our network of expert consultants, we assist the manufacturing industry in addressing technical and business challenges. We also assist new entrepreneurs who want to enter the manufacturing industry by overseeing the entire project's execution.

As of today, we have successfully completed over 2,500 consulting projects and mapped 10,000+ experts across various industries across the country. Being from India's startup capital and witnessing the emergence of platforms and aggregators (ranging from food delivery to AC repair to travel to everything in the B2C domain), I felt it was in our best interests to bring in technology and a unified platform for the SME manufacturing sector. The primary idea behind the platform is to help MSMEs connect with the right experts to address the challenges facing the manufacturing sector. We also added a slew of new features to the platform in response to customer feedback.

How does the platform help its customers? What services does the platform provide? And who is the target audience?

SolutionBuggy is a Unique and only online AI-based platform to connect manufacturing industries with consultants. The industry which can be in food pharma, chemical, construction or any other manufacturing domain can post a problem/project and the consultants with more than 10 years of experience will be able to take up and work on these projects. The platform focuses on connecting the industry to experts. The services can range from product identification, market research, turnkey plant setup, supply chain logistics, marketing and funding assistance.

Target is the MSME sector in the manufacturing segment, with key focus being in food and beverage, renewable energy, chemicals, pharma, aerospace and defense among others.

How many customers/users are currently using the platform? Would you like to share the name of some prominent clientele?

We have reached 60000+ industries, 10000+ experts and completed 2500+ projects in a span of five years. We are working with Clients from various sectors including MNC industries, Big4 consulting, startups, and boutique consulting firms.

How many consultations have been done by a startup? Please share some details about the experts available on the platform?

The experts have experience ranging from 10-40 years in various sectors with speciality in the manufacturing and MSME segments. We have completed 2500+ projects ranging from a one day lean manufacturing training to entire plant setup which can run into 12-15 months.

How is the platform leveraging artificial intelligence?

The manufacturing industry has very minimal data and especially in the MSME sector, it's even difficult to get access to quality data. Over the last 5 years, Solutionbuggy has developed algorithms to capture the right set of data, cleanse it, remove anomalies, and get a good dataset. 

We have also been able to reduce turnaround time for repetitive projects, give a price discovery model for the industries on routine projects, and also increased the projects to  consultants based on almost 30 data points that are being captured at various stages. Now we are using data modelling techniques for predictive analysis on a few key projects and project conversion rates.

What are the opportunities and market size of the Indian Manufacturing Sector?

With new MSMEs in the manufacturing sector being registered at a CAGR of 20%, India is home to a whopping 6.3cr MSMEs with most of these manufacturing industries targeted at segments such as Food and Beverage, Chemical, Pharmaceuticals, Renewable energy, Aerospace and Defence. These fledgling organisations need advice, consulting, and support to grow and become profitable in future.

What is the current funding status of the company? Is the brand looking for further funding? If yes, where are you planning to infuse it?

Currently, SolutionBuggy has raised investment of 2 Cr. The platform is now looking forward to raising another $2 million with the help of venture capitalists and angel investors. The funding will be used mainly for improving the AI platform and reduce human dependence by almost 30% in the sales and project matching cycle. The next step is to improve international business development where we are already getting a few projects.

Tell us about your future expansion plans? Are you planning to expand your current service portfolio?

Although we have a large digital presence, the platform is also looking to expand our office in middle east, south east Asia and Germany. We are seeing a good traction of projects from these countries. We understand that awareness is key in MSMEs and have already taken up the challenge to have knowledge sessions and webinars which are trying to upskill the MSMEs both new and existing ones. We also intend to take up acceleration programs for MSMEs and first-gen entrepreneurs. 

How much growth and traction has the startup has seen so far? How much growth are you projecting in the coming years?

Even during the Covid phase, we have had 7.5X growth in the last 2 years.  We see a vast potential for the MSMEs in the manufacturing segment, so we propose to grow at 10X year on year. We have seen a huge demand from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities where there is large growth in the manufacturing sector - especially in the agriculture-based industries. An equal push from the government in the form of rolling out relevant schemes to promote Make in India and Atma Nirbhar Bharat are also helping the platform to post good growth in future.