Overview
PillarPlus combined MEP consulting with software that generated building-services drawings, bills of quantities and cost estimates. Founded in Jaipur in 2019, it joined YC Winter 2020 and reported projects across India and other countries.[1]
The company attacked a real bottleneck, but the available evidence suggests its software remained bound to expert delivery. YC now labels PillarPlus inactive. Indian corporate records still list the entity active, while co-founder Rushil Mathur operates the related Shreshtha Consultants practice.[2][3] No source establishes a shutdown, acquisition or transfer.
Founding Story
Naman Kasliwal studied electrical engineering and operations research at IIT Bombay and had built optimization projects for the Indian Army, Mumbai Railways and the Bihar government. Rushil Mathur trained as an architect and worked in MEP design. Their overlap was unusually practical: algorithm design met the rules, drawings and coordination required to make a building usable.[1]
Kasliwal linked the product to the 2019 Surat fire, which killed students in a commercial building. "We started writing software to monitor law violations in engineering layouts," he wrote later. The rule checker grew into tools that could generate fire, HVAC, electrical and plumbing layouts.[4]
The founders did not begin with a pure self-serve CAD application. They built an MEP engineering firm whose consultants used automation. That choice supplied project data, expert review and revenue while the algorithms improved. It also made the product harder to separate from services.
Kasliwal described the ambition in a 2021 update: "We are developing software for automatic creation of construction drawings." In the same post, he said PillarPlus had completed more than 260 projects across 40 Indian cities and eight countries.[5] YC's $150,000 investment financed the early company, according to YourStory.[6]
Timeline
- 2019: Kasliwal and Mathur founded PillarPlus and began with code-compliance checks.[1][4]
- Winter 2020: PillarPlus joined YC and raised $150,000.[6]
- 2021: The founder reported 260 projects across 40 Indian cities and eight countries.[5]
- 2022: Kasliwal said the firm had expanded to 17 countries and that its fire-layout generator worked in seconds.[4]
- 2025: Corporate-record aggregation still showed PillarPlus Private Limited as active.[2]
- 2026: YC displayed an inactive status while Mathur and Shreshtha Consultants continued MEP work.[1][7]
What They Built
PillarPlus accepted architectural plans and produced the systems layered inside a building: drainage and water supply, HVAC ducts and piping, fire sprinklers and alarms, electrical circuits and panels, data wiring and security layouts. The output included drawings, reports, bills of quantities and cost estimates.[6]
The automation encoded rules and repeated engineering patterns. A fire layout, for example, had to place equipment against building geometry and applicable codes while coordinating with other services. The software could propose a detailed plan quickly; consultants then supplied judgment and accountability.
That hybrid was both the wedge and the constraint. Customers could buy a completed MEP package rather than learn new software, and the consulting team saw exceptions that could improve the system. Yet each project still carried drawing cleanup, code interpretation, coordination and client revisions. Public sources do not show how much work became truly automatic.
Market Position
Target Customers
PillarPlus sold to architects, contractors, builders, project managers and modular-construction firms. Hotels, apartments, townships, malls and rail projects created enough repeated systems work to benefit from templates and rule checking.
Market Size
No observed source provides a defensible market estimate. The relevant budget sits across MEP design fees, drafting labor, estimating and rework rather than one software category.
Competition
Traditional MEP consultants compete through licenses, reputation and local-code knowledge. Autodesk and other BIM vendors supply authoring systems, while newer design software automates narrow calculations. PillarPlus competed by delivering finished work faster, not by replacing every design environment.
Local expertise created a structural barrier. Building codes, authority expectations and construction practices vary by jurisdiction. Every new geography expanded the rule library and review burden. A services team could bridge those gaps, but the same team limited software margins.
Business Model
YourStory classifies PillarPlus as fee-for-service, consistent with the company's consulting-led delivery.[6] The software made those services faster and more detailed, but public material does not disclose subscription pricing or standalone licenses.
The 260-project figure shows throughput, not recurring revenue. No source discloses average project value, gross margin, repeat rate or the share of work completed without an engineer. Those missing measures are central to whether PillarPlus was a software company, a more efficient consultancy or both.
Traction
The founders reported 260 projects across 40 cities and eight countries in 2021, then 40 cities and 17 countries in 2022.[5][4] These are founder claims and do not establish revenue or retention, but they show meaningful project delivery.
Post-Mortem
Automation could not carry liability alone
MEP drawings affect fire safety, electrical load, water and ventilation. A fast generated plan still needs a qualified person to interpret local rules, coordinate conflicts and accept responsibility. PillarPlus addressed this by keeping consultants in the loop.
That choice likely improved customer trust and output quality. It also meant growth required expertise alongside software. The non-obvious constraint was not whether the generator could draw a pipe. It was whether the company could turn expert exceptions, jurisdiction rules and review liability into a repeatable product without recreating a consultancy in every market.
International traction increased variation
Expanding from eight to 17 countries sounded like progress, but every country introduced new codes and approval practices. The available record does not show whether international work reused one product or demanded custom delivery. PillarPlus's remedy was its consultant-led model; the missing unit economics prevent a judgment on whether that model scaled.
The end state is unresolved
YC labels PillarPlus inactive and the original domain no longer resolves. Corporate-record aggregation lists the entity active, and Mathur identifies himself with both PillarPlus and Shreshtha Consultants.[1][2][3] Shreshtha currently publishes MEP work and hiring notices.[7] The evidence permits a transition hypothesis but not a claim that assets, staff or customers formally moved.
Key Lessons
- PillarPlus began with compliance, not drawing speed. The Surat fire gave the product a concrete safety job and a rules-based starting point.
- Services created the training loop. Consultants delivered customer value and captured exceptions, but their involvement also made software margin and scale harder to prove.
- Geographic breadth raised the rules burden. Seventeen countries meant more than distribution; it meant different codes, reviewers and liability regimes.
- A related successor is not proof of a transaction. Shreshtha's activity suggests continuity in the work, but no observed source documents a transfer from PillarPlus.