Astral Technologies
An average-sized house requires the use of around 12,000 nails during construction. This staggering number highlights the immense scale and detail that goes into every construction project, a process that is often more difficult and data-intensive than many realize.
The construction industry in India is seeing a remarkable boom, creating fertile ground for technological innovation. Fragmented workflows, cost overruns, and project delays have traditionally plagued the sector. However, a new wave of construction technology (ConTech) startups is growing to tackle these challenges head-on. The competition is fierce, with companies vying to provide solutions that simplify processes, improve efficiency, and add to project transparency. These platforms, often in the form of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, are becoming essential tools for firms seeking to gain a competitive edge and navigate the complexities of a fast-growing market.
At the top of this revolution is Astral Technologies, a company dedicated to empowering infrastructure and construction firms across India. Its core offering, BuildSmart Construction ERP, is a modular and integrated software platform designed to manage projects from finance and procurement to labor and communication. The company’s vision is to digitize and streamline construction workflows to add to delivery and transparency across major segments like highways, railways, and buildings. The company’s success is a witness to the leadership and entrepreneurial spirit of its founder and CEO, Deepen Goratela.
BuildSmart works by looking after the inherent inefficiencies of traditional construction. It addresses challenges like manual billing complexity, scattered documentation, and poor stakeholder communication by delivering real-time visibility and automated coordination. The platform’s flagship modules have cost estimation, budgeting, and financial management; materials procurement and labor management; and project scheduling and quality inspections. By automating routine tasks and giving integrated, real-time dashboards, BuildSmart enables proactive decision-making, which is crucial for staying on schedule and within budget.
In this edition of “India’s Leading Construction Tech Solution Providers Transforming Infrastructure – 2025”, we put the spotlight on founder and CEO Deepen Goratela. In an exclusive interview, we review his insights and valuable lessons as an entrepreneur, exploring the story behind his success. Stay tuned.
Prime Insights: Can you introduce your company and its core mission in the construction tech space?
BuildSmart Construction ERP empowers infrastructure and construction firms in India with a modular, integrated software platform to manage projects efficiently—from finance and procurement to labor and communication. Its mission is to digitize and simplify construction workflows across highways, rail, solar plants, buildings, and more to add to delivery and transparency.
Prime Insights: What inspired you to venture into construction technology, and what challenges are you solving?
Born to tackle fragmented workflows in traditional construction projects, BuildSmart wants to overcome delays, cost overruns, manual billing complexity, scattered documentation, labor misallocation, and poor stakeholder communication by delivering real-time visibility and automated coordination.
Prime Insights: What are your flagship products, platforms, or tech solutions that serve the construction industry?
BuildSmart Construction ERP is the core product and flagship giving featured prominently on the buildsmarterp.com site. This is a comprehensive ERP tailored specifically for construction and civil engineering projects, with deep support for:
- Cost estimation, budgeting, and financial management.
- The system includes materials procurement, inventory tracking, and management of subcontractors and labor.
- Project scheduling, RA-bill generation, document control, quality inspections, & equipment management.
BuildSmart targets industries such as highways & bridges, railways & metros, solar power plants, and building construction.
Prime Insights: How do your solutions help in transforming infrastructure development across India?
By digitizing workflows in real time across metro, road, bridge, solar, and building projects, BuildSmart contributes to faster project turnarounds, greater transparency, better compliance, and stronger coordination—leading to enhanced infrastructure delivery across India’s fast-growing construction sector.
Prime Insights: What role do innovation and automation play in your service offerings?
Innovation is central: the platform automates routine tasks like billing, communication tracking, labor shifts, inventory management, equipment scheduling, and risk alerts—enabling proactive decision-making through integrated real-time dashboards and workflows.
Prime Insights: How does your technology improve project efficiency, safety, and cost-effectiveness on construction sites?
Our technology improves construction projects by streamlining procurement and automating RA billing to boost efficiency. For safety, we give built-in compliance and inspection tracking. We ensure cost-effectiveness by providing real-time transparency into labor, material, and machine usage, which reduces waste and helps prevent budget overruns across all projects.
Prime Insights: What types of clients or projects do you typically work with: urban, rural, government, or private sector?
BuildSmart serves a diverse client base, such as large-scale infrastructure and EPC firms, contractors, developers, and agencies such as CPWD and government departments, in both public and private sectors—from urban rail and highways to rural solar plants and building construction.
Prime Insights: Can you share a notable project where your technology made a significant impact?
Our ERP is a versatile solution used across many difficult segments. Major highway and bridge projects, along with large-scale building constructions in diverse environments across India, have successfully utilized our solutions.
Prime Insights: How do you make sure that your solutions are scalable and adaptable to different construction environments?
The ERP is modular and customizable, designed to scale across projects of different sizes and sectors. It adapts to diverse environments via tailored module sets—from small civil sites to multi-million-dollar infrastructure developments—and can integrate with existing software systems for seamless expansion.
Prime Insights: What strategies have you used to gain client trust and position your company as a leader in construction tech?
We gain client trust and lead in construction tech by providing our BuildSmart ERP with real-time collaboration and integrated resource management. We provide customizable solutions for different project scales, ensuring security and compliance with strong encryption. Our strong support system, including technical onboarding and a partner network, further solidifies our position.
Prime Insights: What steps are you taking to align your solutions with sustainability and green construction practices?
While our BuildSmart ERP optimizes material usage and procurement, indirectly supporting sustainable practices by reducing waste, we’re actively exploring future enhancements. These will directly address green building metrics and carbon footprint reduction, further aligning our solutions with environmental responsibility.
Prime Insights: How do you stay ahead of emerging trends like AI, BIM, IoT, or digital twins in the construction sector?
BuildSmart ERP emphasizes automation and real-time workflows. While our company doesn’t currently promote digital twins, BIM, or IoT on the website, we demonstrate innovation in integrated risk management, communication tracking, and process digitization. Future directions could integrate BIM/IoT integration or AI-driven analytics for predictive planning. Consider aligning with market trends, similarly to companies like BuildTrack or BIM-focused startups.
Prime Insights: What kind of support, training, or onboarding do you provide to ensure successful tech adoption?
The platform comes with strong technical support and onboarding—with training for project managers, site engineers, foremen, billing staff, and subcontractors. Support includes applicator training, implementation assistance, and consultation for smoother adoption.
Prime Insights: Can you highlight a key milestone or achievement that reflects your company’s innovation journey?
Certifications and scale are significant achievements, as shown by the trust of over 50 companies, support for multiple infrastructure segments, and delivery across major Indian cities. Also, production capacity (for the chemicals division) exceeds 13,200 US tons annually, though separate, it shows operational maturity.
Prime Insights: What are your future plans for expanding your influence and offerings in the Indian and global infrastructure markets?
Your roadmap likely focuses on expanding ERP adoption across global infrastructure markets, deeper integration with sectors like rail, solar, metro, and government projects, and changing with AI, BIM, or IoT enhancements. Scaling your distribution and partner network across India and neighboring regions also appears key to your growth strategy.
