“I told myself that there could be that application that would improve and completely change the dynamic of my industry,” he says. “I got better, I got healthy and I decided not to look back and build this company.”
Now Latourelle has fully thrown himself into his startup, Brokrete. The firm develops an end-to-end solution for the order and delivery of concrete, stone, sand, gravel and other raw materials in the construction industry.”
‘It’s an industry that has never evolved at the rate of other industries. The delivery process has always been the same since my father and grandfather,’ he says.
“Concrete is in Jordan Latourelle’s blood. Since his grandfather’s era, his family has made its living working in the concrete industry. It’s a tradition he’s proudly maintained: Latourelle started his own company at the age of 19.
All the while, Latourelle harboured a love for technology and programming – passions that, for the longest time, didn’t seem to mix readily with concrete. The Gatineau-Ottawa based entrepreneur lamented a seeming lack of innovation in the industry and wondered about ways to improve the traditional approaches to concrete supply.
It wasn’t until a few years ago when Latourelle was faced with a cancer diagnosis that he realized the nagging thoughts in the back of his mind couldn’t wait any longer. While undergoing treatment, he sold his company to his brother and, seeing the rise of the sharing economy apps such as Uber and Lyft, set to work on a mission to simplify the delivery of concrete materials.
In 2018, Brokrete was selected to be a part of the Ottawa L-Spark accelerator. In 2019, the firm won a Bootstrap Award for disruptor of the year awarded to a company boldly trying to turn a business paradigm on its head for self-funded companies. Later in the year, it closed a funding round with angel investors from Ottawa, Toronto, San francisco and Ontario venture firm MaRS IAF. The company also got selected for the most prestigious tech accelerator in the world in Silicon Valley, Y combinator.
Disrupting the industry of the most used man-made product in the world.
Certainly, Brokrete is tackling a big industry with big problems where innovation has always been put on the side in favor of maintaining the status quo since the 90’s. It’s a huge task to try to disrupt the industry of the most used man-made product in the world, but the company seems to be on the right path with impressive backing from high profile tech entrepreneurs.
Source : https://obj.ca/article/concrete-delivery-startup-brokrete- sets-foundations-growth-500k-funding BY: Craig Lord
