You’ve never heard of this B2B platform, but it just transacted S$10M in equipment rentals

Antbuildz rents heavy vehicles and construction equipment out to contractors and work sites

Renting a scissor lift or crawler crane might sound worlds apart from booking a holiday or ordering groceries. Yet, for years, the way construction firms sourced equipment was closer to the 1980s than the 2020s—characterised by phone calls, paper quotes, unclear payments, and long waits. For an industry that literally builds modern skylines, its own rental processes remained stubbornly analogue.

Antbuildz, a Singapore-based startup, set out to change this. By transforming construction equipment rentals into a seamless digital experience, the platform demonstrates how even the most traditional industries can be disrupted.

We spoke with Malaysian founder and CEO Kek Hean Hooi, 38, to understand how he identified the gap, built Southeast Asia’s first and largest B2B marketplace for construction equipment rental, and is now preparing to take it global.

Spotting a gap in a traditional industry

In today’s digital age, almost everything can be done online, from ordering groceries to booking flights. Yet when it came to construction equipment rentals, the process remained painfully outdated. Quotes often took days to arrive, details were frequently incomplete, and unclear payment methods led to delayed or even defaulted payments to lenders of heavy machinery.

Spotting this inefficiency, Kek envisioned a platform that could make renting and selling construction equipment seamless, transparent, and efficient by digitalising a process that had hardly changed in decades. Daily, weekly, and monthly rates are clearly stated, and delivery fees by the partner business are clearly stated. Each listing also includes a review of the owner’s history of business conduct. Selecting the dates required for rental instantly generates a quotation on site.

Kek’s career began as an engineer, with stints across the oil and gas industry as well as in market research analytics. His last corporate position was as Project Control Lead at Tiong Woon Corporation, a heavy lift specialist in Singapore. 

The role gave him both a firm grasp of business operations and a close-up understanding of what customers needed when renting heavy equipment. After more than eight years immersed in heavy industries, Kek recognised how outdated the sector’s processes were. Traditional rentals were slow, unsystematic, and resistant to technological change. Inspired by platforms like Booking.com and Agoda, he began to ask: Why can’t renting heavy machinery be as simple, fast, and transparent as booking a hotel?

Back in 2020, Kek’s research revealed that less than 1% of construction equipment rentals worldwide were conducted online, highlighting a massive opportunity. 

Traditional rentals required repeated calls, multiple quotations, and often came with hidden fees, making the process both cumbersome and opaque.

For about a year, the idea took shape as he discussed it with his long-time friends, Owen Lim and Pouya Pezhman. When his proposal failed to gain traction at Tiong Woon, Kek made the decision to leave in May 2020 to pursue it full-time, joined by Owen and Pouya, who initially supported operations and product development before becoming fully involved as co-founders.

Their timing was serendipitous. The COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, and many rental companies reliant on phone calls or face-to-face meetings struggled to operate. Antbuildz provided a digital alternative at exactly the right moment, allowing businesses to continue renting equipment with minimal disruption and physical contact.

From startup struggles to gaining market validation

Winning trust in a conservative B2B market was never going to be easy. Convincing businesses to adopt a digital solution in such a traditional sector required patience and persistence. Kek recalls long days spent cold-emailing potential clients and running targeted advertisements to drive traffic to the platform. The trio invested S$50,000 of their own savings, going without salaries until August 2020, when they finally closed their first deal and had their first listing. That milestone validated their model and gave them the confidence to scale.

Antbuildz manages the backend, from analytics to fleet management, while partners focus on sales of their heavy equipment.

These innovations have changed the way businesses perceive digital transactions in the heavy equipment industry. Partners appreciate the guaranteed payouts, while customers enjoy faster, more affordable, and insured rentals. Kek emphasised the platform’s impact: “My partners are very happy as we can guarantee payments, despite earning slightly less per product. The default is a net zero. We solved a very big issue in the rental of construction equipment built on camaraderie and credit.”

By 2025, Antbuildz had grown into a marketplace with more than 100,000 rental and sales listings and partnerships with over 700 businesses. Customer loyalty was strong, with a 50% recurring rate, and three fundraising rounds brought in a total of S$700,000.

Innovation, expansion, and strategy

The team never stopped innovating. In 2023, Antbuildz introduced a “buy” feature that allowed businesses to purchase both new and used equipment. “Through this buy/sell plus rental feature, we are recycling resources to be more effective so customers can find things cheaper than they expected,” Kek explained.

To protect all parties, Antbuildz balanced the needs of both sides, guaranteeing payouts for partners, encouraging customer deposits to reduce defaults, and insuring equipment rented up to S$30,000 through a partnership with Hong Leong. Customers also benefited from instant quotations across multiple providers, cutting decision times from days to minutes.

Underlying these innovations was a careful growth strategy. From the start, Antbuildz relied heavily on digital marketing. Educational blog content not only informed businesses about rental best practices and recommendations but also boosted search engine rankings and attracted organic traffic. The results were clear: 60% of traffic now comes from search, compared to just 20% from social media.

Then in early 2025, Antbuildz launched a proprietary SaaS webstore—a Shopify-like solution where businesses could create online storefronts with customisable drag-and-drop features and templates. This new product allows Antbuildz to reach audiences beyond Singapore and Malaysia.

Notable users include Karcher, Hyster, and Sanway. Interest has even come from outside the heavy equipment sector, hinting at broader applications. Kek described the webstore as “the next ‘in’ thing… an upgraded and more engaging version of a website that people can interact with.”

The company also began expanding into adjacent categories, including spare parts, vehicles, technology, and safety equipment. 

The journey so far and what’s lies ahead

By May 2025, Antbuildz had surpassed S$10 million in transactions, with government agencies and educational institutions like the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) seeking Antbuildz’s platform for equipment rental in their various projects. 

To reach global audiences, it integrated ChatGPT-powered AI to translate its platform into 20 different languages, while the marketplace is working on new AI features to help customers search more efficiently and even recommend equipment based on specific contexts.

Today, Antbuildz serves over 5,600 users with more than 100,000 listings. For Kek, the journey reflects a wider shift in consumer behaviour. “Rental is the same as subscriptions,” he reflected. “The whole world is going into rental mode. We are constantly changing and creating new things. If people don’t convert, it’s because the tools lack a value proposition. In that case, we have to pivot and find the right path.”

Looking ahead, Antbuildz plans to expand beyond Southeast Asia into markets such as Taiwan and Australia.

From its modest beginnings during Kek’s corporate tenure to a multi-million-dollar platform transforming the equipment rental industry, Antbuildz demonstrates how persistence, innovation, and technology can disrupt even the most traditional businesses.

What was once a slow, credit-based process has now become as easy as a few clicks—proving that even construction equipment rentals can thrive in the digital age.

Featured Image Credit: Antbuildz