Re:Build Manufacturing is a company with a vision of re-energizing American manufacturing with high-tech design and engineering capabilities across critical industrial sectors like aerospace, healthcare, defense, and cleantech. Core to its mission is creating enduring jobs while strengthening vulnerable supply chains. General Catalyst announced it is investing $120 million to help support Re:Build’s vision.
For years, corporations shifted their expenditures to a diverse network of external suppliers, frequently overseas. Even though this could be efficient, there were consequences in that skilled workers became part of that outflow. And this reduces U.S. competitiveness and limits supplier diversity.
The Re:Build story started several decades ago when the developing degradation of the U.S. industrial base led to Jeff Wilke and Miles Arnone enrolling in MIT’s “Leaders for Manufacturing” graduate program. Wilke ended up building the consumer business at Amazon and transformed the company’s direct-to-consumer distribution. And Arnone’s became the president of several emerging U.S.-based machine tool companies and managed private equity firms. In 2020, they reconnected to bring back high-quality and cost-competitive manufacturing to U.S. soil.
Re:Build works locally with aerospace and defense, automotive, healthcare, and cleantech customers, deploying its wide range of capabilities and engineering acumen. The company has grown rapidly since its founding, organically and through acquisition. Now, Re:Build comprises 13 businesses across multiple engineering disciplines.
Last year, Re:Build partnered with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC), and Pennsylvania leaders to invest in a new manufacturing facility in Westmoreland County. After operational, the 175,000 sqft. facility is set to create at least 300 new jobs in the county.
KEY QUOTE:
At General Catalyst, we are drawn to visionary founders leading ambitious teams that challenge the status quo and have the potential to transform society in positive ways. Re:Build’s founders and business embody our global resilience thesis, which calls for modernizing our most critical sectors, and perhaps nowhere is this more important than in rebuilding our physical production capabilities.
-Statement from General Catalyst
