Skip to content
Get in touch
Open to co-founder conversations

Premkumar
Manivel

Civil engineer turned founder, building the construction ecosystem. I run ConnectNBuild, and co-found three more ventures across construction, deep tech, and product.

Meenambakkam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

See the venturesconnectnbuild.in
Portrait of Premkumar Manivel

Founder & CEO, ConnectNBuild

Gold Medallist · B.E. Civil Engineering

Rank in department
01Rank in departmentB.E. Civil, VISTAS
Ventures founded
04Ventures foundedAcross construction & deep tech
On site since
2021On site sinceExecution before strategy
Project expo runner-up
2xProject expo runner-upInter-college
Scroll to read
Structural DesignSite ExecutionStartup IncubationAutoCADFormwork DesignQuantity EstimationB2B MarketingBuilding AuditOperationsNext.jsConstruction EcosystemHR ManagementStructural DesignSite ExecutionStartup IncubationAutoCADFormwork DesignQuantity EstimationB2B MarketingBuilding AuditOperationsNext.jsConstruction EcosystemHR Management
01About

I learned the industry from the site up, not the deck down.

I started on site — reading drawings, pouring concrete, correcting formwork that was already half wrong. That is still how I build companies.

I am a civil engineer from Meenambakkam, Chennai. I topped my department at Vels University with a gold medal in B.E. Civil Engineering, and I am now reading for an MBA in Marketing and HR at Hindustan University.

Between those two degrees I spent my time where the work actually happens: as a site engineer running execution, as a design engineer drafting the drawings that execution depends on, as a building auditor, and as a formwork design draftsman. That sequence matters. I have stood on both sides of the drawing — the side that draws it, and the side that has to build it.

Today I run ConnectNBuild, a construction ecosystem incubated at the Vels Innovation Council, and I co-found and operate three other ventures across construction, deep tech, and product. I speak site Tamil and boardroom English, and I have found that most problems in this industry are simply the gap between the two.

Architecture & Construction

The trade underneath everything else.

  • Structural Design
  • AutoCAD Drafting
  • Formwork Design
  • Quantity Estimation
  • Building Audit
  • Site Operations
  • Project Execution
  • Construction Lifecycle

Business & Operations

Turning a trade into a company.

  • Startup Incubation
  • Strategic Planning
  • Cross-functional Leadership
  • HR Management
  • B2B Marketing
  • Commercial Project Management
  • Construction Recruitment

Product & Technology

The layer that makes it scale.

  • React.js & Next.js
  • Vercel Deployment
  • UI/UX Workflow Design
  • ERP Dashboard Design
  • AI Prompt Engineering
  • Digital Marketing
02Ventures

Four companies. One habit: ship the thing.

I founded one and co-founded three more, across construction, deep tech, and product. Each one runs on the same conviction — that operations, not intentions, decide whether an idea survives.

FlagshipJan 2026 — Present

ConnectNBuild

Founder & CEO · Construction ecosystem

A construction ecosystem — incubated at the Vels Innovation Council, Chennai — built to close the distance between the people who need to build and the people who know how.

  • Set the product vision, strategic direction, and market positioning end to end.
  • Run both the technical and commercial workflows, bridging traditional construction practice with digital scale.
  • Grew from a 2024 idea through two years of groundwork to formal incubation in January 2026.

“Think Construction, Think ConnectNBuild.”

Visit connectnbuild.in
ConnectNBuild receiving its incubation certificate at the Vels Innovation Council, Chennai

Incubated at

Vels Innovation Council

Chennai · January 2026

Deep tech

Ambianthive

Co-Founder & COO

A deep tech venture where I own daily operations and technical strategy, keeping research-grade work on a shipping schedule.

  • Direct cross-functional operations so deep tech products reach deployment, not just demo.
  • Apply modern web frameworks and UI/UX principles to keep the technical foundation scalable.

Present

Technology & product

StrataBrains

Co-Founder & COO

Co-founded and operationally led, with responsibility for the systems, cadence, and delivery discipline that carry an early team through its first build cycles.

  • Own the operating rhythm — planning, delivery, and accountability across the team.
  • Translate product intent into execution plans that hold up under real deadlines.

Present

Construction & real estate

Diamond House Construction

Co-Founder

Partner in strategic leadership and business development for a growing construction company, keeping delivery robust and clients satisfied.

  • Drive business development and client relationships.
  • Hold operational delivery to the standard the drawings promise.

Present

03Experience

The road from site engineer to operator.

Read it bottom to top and it is a straight line: execution, then design, then audit, then the commercial side. Nothing here was skipped.

  1. Recent

    Marketing

    Freelance Digital Marketing Consultant

    Self-employed / agency collaborations

    • Built digital marketing strategy and commercial project planning for Chittinadu Cement.
    • Worked directly alongside agencies to align brand messaging with construction and commercial objectives.

  2. Recent

    Operations & HR

    Operations & Marketing / HR Manager

    Workfreaks Business Consultancy & School

    • Ran HR operations across both IT and non-IT sectors, specialising in construction recruitment.
    • Led marketing initiatives and operational workflows for Workfreaks Business School.

  3. 2021 — 2023

    Civil

    Building Auditor

    Civil & construction practice

    • Audited built structures for structural condition, compliance, and remedial scope.
    • Turned inspection findings into actionable repair and strengthening recommendations.

  4. 2021 — 2023

    Design

    Formwork Design Draftsman

    Civil & construction practice

    • Designed and detailed formwork systems for cast-in-place concrete works.
    • Produced shop-ready drawings that site crews could build from without interpretation.

  5. 2021 — 2023

    Civil

    Site Engineer → Design Engineer

    Sai Sharvesh / various projects

    • Began by managing overall site operations and day-to-day project execution.
    • Moved into design, handling architectural work and complex AutoCAD drafting requirements.
    • Carried execution knowledge into the drawing board — designs shaped by what site can actually deliver.
04Projects

Work that left the page and got built.

Three projects I owned end to end — designed, costed, and then actually constructed. The distinction matters more than it should.

01Structural design & execution

Overhead Water Tank, Pammal

Full lifecycle ownership of an overhead water tank for the Pammal area — from structural design through quantity estimation to construction on the ground.

What I did

  • Structural design and detailing of the tank and its supporting staging.
  • Quantity take-off and cost estimation for the complete scope.
  • Site execution and supervision through to commissioning.

A single project carried from first sketch to standing structure — design, estimate, and build, all owned end to end.

02Urban infrastructure research & implementation

Pedestrian Level of Service, Post-Pandemic

A study of how social distancing changed the way people use footpaths, and what that means for how wide those footpaths need to be.

What I did

  • Measured pedestrian behaviour and spacing patterns after the pandemic reshaped how people walk in public.
  • Calculated the footpath widening required to restore an acceptable level of service at the new spacing.
  • Planned the intervention and saw it through to real-world execution, not just recommendation.

Research that left the paper and became built width on a real street.

03Data-led planning, design & estimation

Public Requirement Analysis & Planning

Collected and analysed data on what the public actually needed built, then took the findings through planning, design, and estimation.

What I did

  • Gathered and structured requirement data directly from the people the work would serve.
  • Analysed that data to identify genuine demand rather than assumed demand.
  • Converted the findings into plans, designs, and costed estimates.

Design decisions grounded in evidence about people, not in convention.

05Education

Diploma, degree, and now the business half.

Every step was civil engineering until the MBA — and the MBA exists because engineering alone does not tell you how to run the company you end up starting.

  1. MBA — Marketing & HR

    Hindustan University

    In progress

    Strategic marketing, organisational behaviour, and scalable business administration — the vocabulary for the second half of a builder's career.

  2. B.E. Civil Engineering

    Vels Institute of Science, Technology & Advanced Studies

    Graduated 2025

    Gold Medallist — First Rank in Department

    Structural design, project management, and construction operations. First Class with Distinction, May 2025.

  3. Diploma in Civil Engineering

    Meenakshi Krishnan Polytechnic College

    Completed

    Department First

    The first real grounding in drawings, materials, and method — where the site instinct started.

  4. Higher Secondary Schooling

    Brilliant Matriculation Higher Secondary School

    Completed

    Schooling completed in Chennai.

06Awards & Recognition

A medal, an incubation, and a habit of entering things.

2025

Gold Medal — First Rank in Department

Vels Institute of Science, Technology & Advanced Studies

First Rank and First Class with Distinction in the B.E. Civil Engineering degree examination, May 2025. Conferred at the VISTAS annual convocation on 12 September 2025.

Startup Incubation — ConnectNBuild

2026

Vels Innovation Council (VIC), Chennai

ConnectNBuild formally incubated at the Vels Innovation Council, a Section 8 startup business incubator.

Inter-College Project Expo — Runner-up

Inter-college competition

Placed runner-up on two separate occasions for project work presented against competing institutions.

Paper Presentation

SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Ramapuram Campus

Presented technical research at SRM Ramapuram.

Engineering Olympiad — Participant

Engineering Olympiad

Competed in the Engineering Olympiad against candidates across disciplines.

07Gallery

The moments worth keeping.

Convocation day, the medal, and the morning ConnectNBuild was formally incubated.

Currently

What I’m into right now

Building

ConnectNBuild

Turning the construction ecosystem from a slogan into a working platform, out of the Vels Innovation Council in Chennai.

Studying

MBA — Marketing & HR

At Hindustan University, filling in the commercial and people-side gaps that engineering degrees leave open.

Operating

Three co-founded ventures

Ambianthive, StrataBrains, and Diamond House Construction — deep tech, product, and construction, run in parallel.

Looking for

Co-founder conversations

Startups where an execution-first operator who speaks both engineering and enterprise can move things faster.

08Contact

If you are building something, let's talk.

I am open to co-founder conversations, construction partnerships, and consulting work. The fastest way to reach me is email — I answer it myself.

Social presence

Most of what I build in public lives on these channels — the ConnectNBuild academy, the site walkthroughs, and the occasional opinion about how this industry ought to work.

“Connect. Build. Scale.”