Key Takeaways
- • Framingham-based Re:Build raised $2.1 billion from investors, bringing total equity invested since its 2020 founding to more than $4 billion, according to The Boston Globe, setting a record for a Massachusetts venture capital round.
- • The round was led by Cambridge's General Catalyst, an early backer, with JPMorgan Chase participating as a first-time investor in the company.
- • The deal surpasses the previous Massachusetts record of $1.8 billion set by Commonwealth Fusion Systems in 2021, per PitchBook.
- • Re:Build, an engineering and manufacturing services provider with 18 sites and about 2,000 employees, has acquired 13 small engineering and manufacturing firms to help customers design products for manufacturability.
- • Re:Build declined to disclose its private market valuation.
Summary
Re:Build, an engineering and manufacturing services provider and product developer based in Framingham, said last week that it raised $2.1 billion from investors, according to The Boston Globe. The company, founded in 2020, has now invested more than $4 billion in total equity. It declined to disclose its private market valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst of Cambridge, an early backer, and JPMorgan Chase, which is a first-time investor in the company. The Globe reported that the raise is a record for a Massachusetts venture capital round, exceeding the previous high of $1.8 billion set by Devens-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems in 2021, according to PitchBook. Commonwealth Fusion, which develops nuclear fusion generators, has raised $4 billion since its 2018 launch.
Re:Build focuses on helping customers build high-value advanced products in critical sectors including aerospace and defense, energy, and robotics. Rather than pursuing breakthroughs in drugs, AI, or alternative energy, the company has acquired 13 small engineering and manufacturing firms to build an ecosystem in which products are designed around how they will be made. Its 18 sites, including locations in Framingham, Wilmington, and Merrimack, N.H., offer expertise spanning composites and plastics, printed circuit boards, and wiring assemblies. The company employs 200 people in Massachusetts and about 1,800 elsewhere in the country. Cofounder and chief executive Miles Arnone described the network as a decentralized version of Shenzhen, the Chinese electronics manufacturing hub, and said the company produces hundreds of millions of dollars of material each year.
Re:Build also selectively incubates new businesses to address unfilled market opportunities. The best known spinoff is Slate Auto, an independent company making a no-frills electric pickup slated to reach the market soon. Other spinoffs make lithium battery packs, drones and drone batteries, aircraft components, and medical lab equipment.
Arnone, who attended MIT and later managed industrial turnarounds for private equity firms, cofounded Re:Build with Jeff Wilke, who previously ran Amazon's consumer business. Hedge fund manager Will Barker, a third cofounder, was the company's first outside investor. The founders formed the company in response to four decades of U.S. deindustrialization. Arnone told the Globe the goal is to ensure the next generation of products is made in the United States, and that the company aims to build a manufacturing footprint that can compete worldwide in high labor-cost environments. Manufacturing employment in Massachusetts has fallen by more than half since 1990, to about 226,000, and Arnone cited high energy and real estate costs as obstacles to much manufacturing in the state. He said Re:Build will not target tariff-protected products because the duration of import duties is uncertain.
Re:Build focuses on helping customers build high-value advanced products in critical sectors including aerospace and defense, energy, and robotics. Rather than pursuing breakthroughs in drugs, AI, or alternative energy, the company has acquired 13 small engineering and manufacturing firms to build an ecosystem in which products are designed around how they will be made. Its 18 sites, including locations in Framingham, Wilmington, and Merrimack, N.H., offer expertise spanning composites and plastics, printed circuit boards, and wiring assemblies. The company employs 200 people in Massachusetts and about 1,800 elsewhere in the country. Cofounder and chief executive Miles Arnone described the network as a decentralized version of Shenzhen, the Chinese electronics manufacturing hub, and said the company produces hundreds of millions of dollars of material each year.
Re:Build also selectively incubates new businesses to address unfilled market opportunities. The best known spinoff is Slate Auto, an independent company making a no-frills electric pickup slated to reach the market soon. Other spinoffs make lithium battery packs, drones and drone batteries, aircraft components, and medical lab equipment.
Arnone, who attended MIT and later managed industrial turnarounds for private equity firms, cofounded Re:Build with Jeff Wilke, who previously ran Amazon's consumer business. Hedge fund manager Will Barker, a third cofounder, was the company's first outside investor. The founders formed the company in response to four decades of U.S. deindustrialization. Arnone told the Globe the goal is to ensure the next generation of products is made in the United States, and that the company aims to build a manufacturing footprint that can compete worldwide in high labor-cost environments. Manufacturing employment in Massachusetts has fallen by more than half since 1990, to about 226,000, and Arnone cited high energy and real estate costs as obstacles to much manufacturing in the state. He said Re:Build will not target tariff-protected products because the duration of import duties is uncertain.
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