ModulusTech is a Karachi based startup that promises to deliver houses that can be packed up and moved city to city with ease! However, it is to be noted that the houses they promise on are not the two-storey luxury house but rather a one-room, flat-packed housing unit that can be assembled in a mere three hours.
The manufacturing of the unit takes about a week when one places an order with the company, specifying your size requirements etc. The ModulusTech team will install and assemble it on site, along with roofing as well as the fittings and plumbing for you as well. The standard 256 square feet model costs around Rs300000.
According to the founders of ModulusTech, the company’s primary target is to provide affordable housing to the internally displaced persons, refugees, and provide low-end housing projects for the poorest of the poor. With there being a shortage of nine million houses in Pakistan, ModulusTech is looking at that segment.
However, Nabeel Siddiqui further adds that, “We want to mainly cover that segment but our product can be used in many other settings. Like if you want a separate study room, a servant quarter, or even tourist cabins.”
They aim to take their startup to an international level and are currently in talks with both local and international NGOs. ModulusTech was initially a final year project for the three founders Nabeel Siddiqui, Yaseen Khalid and Muhammad Saquib for their Civil Engineering degree at NED University. “The applications for Nest I/O were open so we thought to give it a try, otherwise we would have gone for Master’s. And to our surprise, we got in,” said Nabeel while speaking to a local newspaper.
The unique selling point of ModulusTech is not only the low cost of $11 a square foot compared to concrete houses’ per square feet cost of $18 and above. But the fact that their carbon footprint is 50 times lower as compared to other players.
In terms of investment and scaling, ModulusTech has managed to gain traction from the United Nations and other international bodies, winning around $40,000 in grant money. However, they are in talks with various companies for partnership.
ModulusTech is one of the few hardware startups in the country and it is yet to be seen how they fare as it is relatively harder for such startups to scale as compared to software based ones.
