Matrak China Opening+ Launch of Breakthrough Matrak AI

Since the very beginning of Matrak , our mission has been to transform global construction supply-chains, with connected materials tracking.

Today, I’m pleased to share 3 major announcements as we accelerate on our journey to drive this industry transformation.

As reported by the AFR, Matrak has successfully closed a new $2.9M investment round and officially opened our Matrak China office.

But most importantly – we’re also unveiling a breakthrough enhancement that makes tracking with Matrak absolutely seamless. This means Matrak will be vastly more accessible for anyone in construction, allowing everyone to benefit from supply-chain transparency and coordination.

Matrak has always been a global network, reflecting modern construction supply-chains and procurement.

Our first foray into the overseas market was in 2018, at the very beginning. Our 2nd ever customer asked us to translate Matrak into Chinese to support joinery and façade manufacturers shipping to Australia. They wanted to ensure the manufacturers on the factory floor could easily coordinate with the builder and installers, with Matrak as the common language.

From this humble beginning we’ve had the fortune to connect dozens of major construction exporters around the world, with China our second largest market.

With support from Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade)‘s Emily MA & their Landing Pad program, we worked closely with our Chinese manufacturing customers to build a system that would help protect their businesses while giving them a competitive edge in the global market. We’re extremely grateful for Austrade’s help over many years, and were thrilled to have Australia’s Trade Commissioner to Beijing, Daniela Assis , speaking at our launch.

From Daniela’s speech – “Matrak’s journey from a small team participating in the Australian Landing Pad Program in 2019, to where they stand today is truly inspiring. Despite the challenges posed by COVID over the past few years, Matrak’s resilience and unwavering commitment to their vision have propelled them into international success. Their story reflects the spirit of Australian startups, and I am confident that more Australian companies like Matrak will follow suit and thrive in China’s dynamic market.”

Our work with Austrade saw us foster a strong relationship with G&M Capital, who we’re thrilled to have officially joined the Matrak family as part of our most recent investment round. We’re thrilled to have them join our strong cohort of existing investors, who, sharing our vision for the industry, invested heavily alongside G&M.

We’re grateful for G&M’s pivotal support for our China launch, and extending their relationships with major property developers to help us continue to grow.

Matrak’s permanent presence in China will allow even stronger collaboration and support for our customers across China and the broader region – from Hong Kong to Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

We open this new chapter at a time when industry trends are rapidly shifting the dynamics of construction, with end-to-end auditability and traceability of products taking prominence.

Supply chains continue to become increasingly globalised. Critical equipment and for our hospitals and data centres are facing bottlenecks overseas and few global suppliers. In Australia, direct procurement is increasingly a prerequisite for winning tenders. The increase of modular and DfMA construction holds huge promise – but requires a level of supply-chain coordination that is new to our industry. And most critically of all, reducing the industry’s massive carbon emissions requires end-to-end, auditable tracking of the emissions embodied in construction materials – something long discussed but almost never achieved in practice.

These trends will shape how construction evolves over the next few years. We’re thrilled to be part of a network of visionary companies who have shown leadership in tackling these challenges head on.

Our customers’ commitment to materials transparency and traceability has delivered great achievements:

– 1,761,966 items tracked across 14 countries.

– 405 construction projects across a diverse range of sectors -  large-scale multi-residential, schools, universities, hospitals, civil infrastructure and data centers

This is a solid start.

But construction is a huge industry. Australia has approximately 4500 major projects annually, and the US and China dwarf this number. If we want to achieve our vision of truly transforming the industry, something more is needed.

At Matrak, simplicity has always been at the core of our platform.

Thanks to collaboration with our customers, we’ve been proud to continually lead the industry in streamlining this process. This includes our automatic takeoffs for customers, interactive drawings that make materials tracking “as easy as colouring in”, and simple QR code scanning to track products + shipments. Plus a whole lot more.

But while these capabilities are critically  important to our customers, we needed more.

We needed something that would allow our largest suppliers – companies with 10,000s of staff – to rapidly roll end-to-end connected materials tracking out universally. We spent many months working closely with these suppliers to help develop something that would give the benefits of Matrak, but with zero overhead and change management.

Today, we’re thrilled to unveil our breakthrough solution – Matrak AI. This solution allows Matrak to intelligently read and understand the legacy packing list, production sheets and shipping spreadsheets that have long been the bedrock of how companies coordinate.

This means the benefits of connected supply-chains, without the overhead.

If your suppliers, clients, or colleagues are using spreadsheets to keep track of what’s been ordered, shipped, received etc – Matrak AI can turn this into live updates of the Matrak system, making sure everyone is on the same page and nothing is missed.

Matrak AI can help uplift their current processes, unlocking powerful tools like progress + run rate report, QR code tracking and coordination to dates – without any process changes for staff.

This capability is being used with selected customers and will be rolled out to all users later this year. If you’d like to participate, please contact us at [email protected] while spaces are still available.