Plant Prefab Secures $42M in Funding for Expansion Into Residential Community Developments
Plant Prefab has secured $42 million in Series C and other funding to support the company’s expansion and increased multi-unit housing production.
Geradu Next Venture, the venture capital arm of Brazilian steel manufacturer Gredau, led the $30 million Series C round with Asahi Kasei, Brown Angel Group, Light Ray Ventures and Unreasonable Collective participating. The round also included $12 million in debt and equipment financing from Western Technology Investment and ATEL Capital Group, according to a release.
“Between our two existing facilities, we can produce 35 to 45 units a year. In this new facility, we’ll be able to do 800-plus,” Steve Glenn, founder and CEO of Plant Prefab, said. “So, with that, we’ll be doing much larger projects, both single-family developments and multifamily. We think we will be able to serve the entire West Coast because we’ll be able to produce much faster, much more cost-effectively, and sustainably at this new facility.”
The majority of the funding will be used to develop Tejon Ranch Hub, Plant Prefab’s third factory location. A new system looks to fix the “design and buildability” issues that come with all-modular or all-panelized multifamily construction and help the “unpredictable timelines and labor challenges” associated with it, according to the release. Tejon Ranch Hub will also be fully solar-powered.
As of August 2022, Plant Prefab had a contractual backlog of more than $85 million and $660 million in prospective business that includes a mix of affordable, market-rate and workforce housing in single-family, multifamily, single-family community and student housing developments, according to the release. Its contractual backlog grew 58 percent year-over-year while it prospective business increased 110 percent in that same time, the release said.
“Plant Prefab’s end-to-end solution ensures optimal efficiency throughout the project lifecycle,” Rafael La Porta de Castro, corporate development director for Gerdau North America, said in prepared remarks. “This holistic approach and proven ability to standardize almost any design into repeatable components makes the company uniquely suited to address the most high-demand segments of the housing market, especially urban infill, second home, and resort communities in the Western U.S. Gerdau is proud to support Plant Prefab’s leadership in sustainable housing design, production and operations.”
Aside from finishing the hub, money from the financing round will go toward Plant Prefab’s engineering, supply chain and project management teams, the release said.
Update: This story originally misattributed source material. This has been corrected. We apologize for the error.
Emily Fu can be reached at efu@commercialobserver.com.
