AI Quote and Order Automation for Distributors & Manufacturers

Mercura automates quotes and orders for distributors & manufacturers in the construction supply chain. Our software lets sales teams process requests in minutes instead of days. By eliminating repetitive back-office tasks, we help sales reps focus on winning more deals and driving revenue.

Active Founders

Lukas Bock

Founder

CEO at Mercura. Previously, AI Engineer at Google X, implementing end to end ML pipelines impacting millions of users. Former Data Scientist at Allianz, driving AI integration across ~60 global entities. PhD dropout, University of Cambridge. Lifelong exposure to the construction industry, growing up in an HVAC and plumbing family and learning about the industry firsthand on job sites.

Lukas Bock

Founder

CEO at Mercura. Previously, AI Engineer at Google X, implementing end to end ML pipelines impacting millions of users. Former Data Scientist at Allianz, driving AI integration across ~60 global entities. PhD dropout, University of Cambridge. Lifelong exposure to the construction industry, growing up in an HVAC and plumbing family and learning about the industry firsthand on job sites.

Stefan Zheng

Founder

CPO at Mercura. Former Bain consultant, improving operations efficiency across 15+ manufacturing plants. Product Manager at startups and early-stage investor at Cherry Ventures. Researcher at MIT, developing GPT solutions before everyone else did. Graduated within the top 2% from TU Munich and Harvard Business School. Mastered operations by working in his Chinese parent’s restaurant from age 10.

Stefan Zheng

Founder

CPO at Mercura. Former Bain consultant, improving operations efficiency across 15+ manufacturing plants. Product Manager at startups and early-stage investor at Cherry Ventures. Researcher at MIT, developing GPT solutions before everyone else did. Graduated within the top 2% from TU Munich and Harvard Business School. Mastered operations by working in his Chinese parent’s restaurant from age 10.

Company Launches

Mercura: Quotes in minutes, not days

See original launch post

📜 Background:

Co-founder Lukas Bock grew up in a family business with over 100 years in plumbing and electrical trades. He’s seen first-hand how manual quoting in the construction industry is.

Inspired by this legacy, Mercura is now using AI to transform how millions of sales reps at distributors & manufacturers work.

❌ Problem:

When contractors bid on construction projects, they request quotes from distributors and manufacturers, often in unstructured formats like emails, Excel files, and PDFs. These requests contain functional product requirements but frequently lack details.

Distributors and manufacturers employ massive inside sales teams that manually interpret these requests, compare specifications with their product catalog, and select suitable products.

This slow, manual, and error-prone process holds off inside sales teams from their core task—selling—while delaying responses to customers and increasing the risk of lost revenue.

https://youtu.be/Bn-ENaj_6Tc

🪄 Solution:

Mercura automates sales quotations for HVAC, electrical and plumbing distributors & manufacturers.

By eliminating repetitive back-office tasks with AI, our software enables sales teams to process RFQs in minutes instead of days. This lets them focus on winning more deals and driving revenue.

Our customers use Mercura to quote significantly more requests automatically, which allows them to maximize their sales potential and win more customers.

This is how it works:

Customer request intake – Requests arrive in various formats (PDFs, Excel, emails, etc.) and must be processed into the ERP.
Data extraction – Our AI extracts relevant product information, such as product descriptions, types, manufacturers, part numbers, and quantities, and structures it correctly.
Validation & matching – Our AI matches line items with the distributor’s product catalog, and suggests the best matches based on the customer’s sales history.
ERP entry – The quote is automatically entered into the ERP.

🌟 About us:

Lukas Bock grew up in a family business with over 100 years in construction. After working as an AI engineer at Google X and Data Scientist at Allianz, he’s now back in the industry to transform how sales reps work.

Hai Dang is an AI researcher with experience at Meta and Autodesk, holding patents and over ten first-authored papers at top-tier conferences. He’s an expert in human-AI collaboration and now applying his research to this domain.

Stefan Zheng improved operations efficiency across 15+ manufacturing plants as a consultant at Bain. He’s excited to drive sales efficiency in wholesale distribution at scale.

🙏 Our Ask:

Intro us to HVAC, electrical and plumbing distributors & manufacturers - we give you 20% of the first monthly fee if we close a deal!
We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback at founders@mercura.ai

Your help can make a huge difference. Thank you!

- Lukas, Stefan & Hai