Today marks a significant milestone on our journey. Australia's largest construction marketplace PlantMiner has merged with Felix to become Felix Vendor Marketplace.
We believe this change will further enhance the connection between contractors and their supply chains.
When we launched PlantMiner in 2013, the idea was to become the largest and most trusted construction marketplace in Australia, where anyone in any location looking for a hire company or a subcontractor could easily discover new vendors and build relationships, saving them time and money.
As PlantMiner began to establish itself as a trusted marketplace to find quality suppliers, some leading builders and contractors using the platform approached us with some feedback. They told us that in addition to the online Marketplace, they also needed a platform to manage their vendor prequalification and more complex sourcing events. So, we listened to what the industry needed and built Felix, an enterprise vendor management and sourcing platform.
Felix is now used internationally by leading Construction, Mining, Government, Utility and Public Infrastructure companies to manage their supply chains.
Felix customers can now access the PlantMiner network when they need to find new suppliers to source from. This creates a more powerful platform for Felix customers and creates more opportunities for vendors to build new relationships with high-quality clients and win work.
Having now connected Felix and PlantMiner together, it makes sense for everything to exist under the one brand.
Like many great software companies who offer multiple products, our platform has evolved over time based on industry and customer feedback.
We have many user types: some users just want to find someone local to them who can do a small concreting job, and we have tier-one contractors who want to change the way they manage their entire supply chain.
Likewise, with vendors we have some who want to win more work on major projects, and some who are focused on supplying locally on smaller jobs.
Having one brand will allow us to service our customers on both sides of the supply and demand economy more effectively.
With the combined forces, shared passion and unified experience across the platform, we're thrilled about the journey ahead. And we hope you are too.
P.S. I hosted a live webinar on Sep 10 dedicated to searchers and vendors about the Felix Vendor Marketplace transition. Please click here to watch the recording.
Most procurement teams already know their supplier base carries risk. The harder question is what to do about it without doubling the admin load. Insurances lapse mid-engagement. A subcontractor who underperformed on one project gets re-engaged on the next because nobody flagged it. Compliance documents sit in inboxes, on shared drives, in someone's head.
Tendering often breaks down into a manual, fragmented process. Specifications are sent by email, vendor questions are answered inconsistently, and bids arrive in different formats, making bid evaluation slow and difficult. By the time a Recommendation for Award is submitted, the audit trail is scattered across inboxes, shared drives and individual recollections. Strategic sourcing software helps procurement teams standardise tendering, improve governance and create a clearer path to award.
Last week I had the chance to attend FCON26 – the 6th annual Future of Construction Summit – held at the Royal International Convention Centre in Brisbane. Over two days, more than 1,000 construction industry professionals gathered to talk strategy, technology and the future of how Australia delivers.
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