Serious Materials on Monday said it bought a defunct window factory in Pennsylvania it plans to refurbish and reopen to crank out super-insulating windows and glass, as the company positions itself for rapid growth.
“We’re sold out in high-value windows, and we’re ramping capacity as quickly as possible,” said Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials. “A way to do that is to buy distressed assets, modify their line, and build our products.”
The 100,000-square-foot facility, which closed in October when Kensington Window’s parent company filed for bankruptcy, will reopen in 30 days and crank out 13,000 windows per month at full capacity. Serious Materials did not disclose terms of the deal.
The acquisition, along with expansions at existing facilities in Colorado and California, will bring Serious Materials’ manufacturing capacity to more than 40,000 windows per month, a 10-fold increase, Mr. Surace said.
Serious Materials' expansion highlights the growing industry for green building, in which homes, office buildings, and industrial complexes are designed to reduce their environmental impact. The value of U.S. green building starts could reach as high as $140 billion by 2013, from less than $50 billion in 2008, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, a construction market research and publishing group.
Mr. Surace said his company’s windows give a 300 percent insulation improvement over standard dual-pane windows. That could translate into energy cost-savings in the thousands of dollars over the lifetime of a typical home, he said.
Serious Materials currently distributes its products exclusively in North America, but Mr. Surace said he’s looking for opportunities in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Based in Sunnyvale, California, the startup raised $30 million in venture financing in 2007 from New Enterprise Associates and Foundation Capital.
In addition to high-insulating windows, the green materials company manufactures a drywall replacement that requires 80 percent less energy to produce than conventional products.