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Months after receiving $865M in funding from a SoftBank-led investment, Silicon Valley-based Katerra will merge with Fields Construction Co. New Jersey-based Fields, a construction management firm, will be known as Katerra going forward. The merger grows Katerra's presence on the East Coast.
Fields will use Katerra’s vertically integrated model of design, material supply, manufacturing, logistics and assembly to shorten time and lessen the costs from building construction.
“We’ve long believed that the construction industry is in need of innovation, and Katerra is at the leading edge of the sector’s transformation,” Fields Construction Co. principal James Caulfield said in a statement.
Katerra, valued at over $3B, is expanding its manufacturing and R&D and plans to start on 30 projects this year. It manufactures panels and components off-site and assembles them on-site. Katerra Head of Materials Trevor Schick previously told Bisnow that its processes reduce construction times of 24 months to 36 months by half.
The construction company builds wall panels, cabinets and countertops at its Phoenix factory and is building a factory to be completed this year in Eastern Washington to create mass timber.
As of March, Katerra had 13 projects in the works and an order book of $1.3B. The company recently added UDR, Sobrato and Legacy Partners as its first external customers. Its main client was originally Wolff Co., a multifamily development company owned by Katerra co-founder Fritz Wolff. The construction company has been primarily focused on multifamily, but is expanding into other areas of commercial real estate.
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