Snaptrude's 3D designs to save time and money for realtors

Startup Showcase

Having fallen in love with mathematics during school days, Altaf Ganihar was clueless that the subject will help him set up Snaptrude, a firm that designs 3D models from hand-drawn sketches with information like built-up area and carpet area, and even performs interior design all within a matter of a few seconds. “This makes the process very efficient and can save 90-95% of time and money for the design teams,” says Ganihar, who’s also the CEO of Snaptrude.

Speaking about the firm’s early days, Ganihar, who hails from Hubballi, recollects, “It all began with my quest for a purist approach to maths when I started studying the Theory of General Relativity. During my school days, I got acquainted with advanced mathematics and wrote my first research paper.”

“Before founding Snaptrude, I was invited by the DST (Department of Science & Technology) to lead a project group which was trying to reconstruct the world heritages site of Hampi in 3D,” he said.

“During this period, I noticed that the architectural process and software are very slow and require a lot of labourious and manual tasks of modeling and component-placing, and hence, the focus shifts from the real art of architecture. I started working on a project to automate manual tasks so that architects can focus on the architecture, and computers can take care of the rest,” he added.

Snaptrude, which embarked on its journey in November 2015, is bootstrapped. However, it got support from Professor Suresh Sadmal and Professor Daniel Hoskeri. Snaptrude was in the first batch of real estate startup accelerator programme Brigade REAP which was recently announced. The company with its disruptive solution is making  design intelligent and natural.

“Real estate design is a core problem and hence encapsulates a lot of domains like architectural design, structural design and MEP design (Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing). Currently, we are focusing on solving the concept architectural design part. We have plans on expanding the product suite to include structural design, geolocation analysis like wind analysis and thermal analysis, and then move onto MEP design aspects,” he added.

“The product is in the beta stage, and we are working with some of the leading architectural firms in India, as well as abroad. We have an invite-only scheme for onboarding users, and currently have a user-list of 170 people waiting to start using the product. Our aim is to achieve  2,000 monthly users by the end of 2017, with 20-30% month-on-month growth,” he said. The product is offered as a subscription model with various suites focusing on the architectural, real estate developers and interior decor market. The pricing is between $15 and $40 per month based on the suite.