Factory_OS, a modular housing startup with an eye on building apartments more efficiently at a lower cost, announced Friday a Series B funding round of $55 million. The round was led by Lafayette Square Holdings, with participation from Autodesk, Citi, Facebook, Google and Morgan Stanley.
The San Francisco Bay Area-based company that believes “housing should be built more like cars” was born in 2017 by general contractors Larry Pace and Rick Holliday. In its previous funding round, the company raised $22.7 million.
Factory_OS pre-assembles the different components of each home simultaneously off-site, which it claims helps it to deliver a savings of 20 to 40 percent on multifamily housing.
The boost in funding will allow the company to increase manufacturing in its second Mare Island location, invest in robotics and other technology advancements, expand into Los Angeles and open a “housing innovation center” that will showcase new technology and initiate research and education activities, according to Factory-OS’s press release.
The company expects to earn $80 million in revenue for 2020 and $150 million in 2021. In total, Factory_OS has produced over 1,000 units and currently has multiple projects under construction. One of those projects includes a 250-unit apartment complex for Google employees not far from Google’s Mountain View office.
Rick Holliday | Credit: LinkedIn
“By retooling multifamily housing production from beginning to end, we’re supporting everyone involved with construction — architects, engineers, general contractors, union workers — to do what they do faster and most efficiently,” Rick Holliday, CEO of Factory_OS, said in a press release. “We aim to have an impact on housing costs that goes beyond construction, so we’re also engaging with policy and finance players to create a comprehensive framework that everyone can benefit from.”
Both Facebook and Google have pledged billion of dollars to support California’s affordable housing crisis.
“Our investment in Factory_OS — an innovator building technology to bring down the cost of housing construction — is part of our broader company initiative to help fund scalable and affordable solutions that will help to alleviate the housing crisis in California,” John Tenanes, Facebook’s vice president of global facilities and real estate, said in a statement.
