Boxabl manufacturers and delivers small houses that can be assembled right out of the box (no pun intended). It offers a model that is called Casita.
The company, which is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, was founded in 2017 by Galiano Tiramani and Paolo Tiramani.
Co-founder Paolo got the idea for starting Boxabl after building and trying to ship a pre-built house using factory-built room modules. Unfortunately, these modules were extremely hard to ship and assemble, thus causing expenses to skyrocket.
After three years of development, the team unveiled their flagship product, Casita, to the public and opened it up for pre-orders.
Those pre-orders began to skyrocket when, in June 2021, it was revealed that Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk was one of the three people that was living in the Casita. As a result, sales tripled to more than 100,000 pre-orders.
It would, with its current manufacturing capability of 3,600 units per year, take Boxabl 28 years to fulfill all of those orders. Add to the fact that the firm has a priority government contract worth $10 million for military housing and wait times will even be longer.
The firm, in order to ramp up production and keep up with demand, enabled retail investors to purchase shares in the company. This has enabled the firm to raise over $55 mole from 3,000+ retail investors.
On top of that, venture capitalists have poured another $106 million into the company, which is now valued at a whopping $3 billion.
The methodology with which competitors of Boxabl are ranked is based on publicly available information. Data points such as the pre-orders, Instagram followers, revenue generated, number of employees, and anything else in between will be considered.
Companies that are already selling homes, the ones that are in their pre-launch phase, or even homebuilders will be taken into account.
Additionally, since Boxable will probably derive the majority of its income from the United States (due to extremely high shipping costs), only local competition will be taken into account.
Lastly, this analysis should not be seen as an endorsement of any company or service. It merely acts as a summary of all the competition that Boxabl faces as of today.
Prefabricated housing is a $9 billion / year industry set to grow at two percent annually over the next three years. Naturally, there are plenty of other companies gunning for the customer’s hard-earned cash.
So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the top 7 competitors of Boxabl. Â
1. Factory_OS
Headquarters: Vallejo, California Founder(s): Larry Pace, Rick Holliday Year Founded: 2017
Factory_OS builds modular components in an offsite assembly line operation on Mare Island – ironically the same building in which U.S. Navy ships were built during World War II. Co-founder Rick Holiday, a real estate veteran with more than 40 years of experience, saw firsthand how inefficient and costly housing development can be in the United States.
The firm claims that it can design and build multifamily homes 40 to 50 percent faster at 20 to 40 percent less cost. Their homes are built completely off-site and only assembled when shipped to the customer’s location.
For example, the firm has partnered with Autodesk to allow its designers to create better and more efficient modules. Autodesk, alongside other heavy hitters such as Google, Meta, and Citi Bank, have invested over $77 million into the company.
In fact, Google became the first company to place an order for 500 units. Factory_OS projects that it can manufacture up to 3,000 homes per year. Currently, 500 people in total are employed by Factory_OS.
Sources: Crunchbase, Factory_OS
2. Blu Homes
Headquarters: San Francisco, California Founder(s): Bill Haney, Dennis Michaud, Maura McCarthy Year Founded: 2008
Blue Homes is one of the pioneers in the Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) segment and has built hundreds of homes primarily across California.
Its most popular unit is the Breezehouse 2100, which starts at $625,000 and boasts over 2,100 square feet in size. Other models include the Origin 1900, Origin 1000, and Cabana 600, which are smaller in size but consequently less pricey.
In May 2020, Blu Homes was acquired by Dvele, a privately held manufacturer of next-gen modular homes and housing-focused tech. The acquisition price itself was not disclosed.
Blu Homes, prior to being acquired, had raised $197.5 million in venture funding. Over 200 people are employed by the firm, which doesn’t disclose revenues, on a full-time basis.
Sources: Blu Homes, Crunchbase
3. Blokable
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington Founder(s): Aaron Holm, Nelson Rio, Timothy Miller Year Founded: 2016
The Blokable Building System, as the name would suggest, are stackable home modules that can be assembled in a multitude of ways. Blokable claims to be the world’s first vertically integrated modular developer.
This means that the firm controls the whole process, from analyzing the site all the way to assembling the house and renting it out. It’s primarily focused on building affordable multifamily homes. Almost all of its builds are, in fact, not-for-profit projects.
Blokable primarily ships across its home state of Washington as well as California. However, its modular solution has also been approved in states like Idaho and Oregon.
The firm has raised over $30 million in venture funding thus far and employs over 100 people. It has used portions of that funding to open up a manufacturing facility in California.
Sources: Blokable, Crunchbase
4. Plant Prefab
Headquarters: Rialto, California Founder(s): Steve Glenn Year Founded: 2016
Plant Prefab was spun out of the design and development company LivingHomes, which had also been started by Steve Glenn. The firm utilizes advanced digital modeling and best-in-class manufacturing techniques to create homes 20 to 50 percent faster than traditional constructors.
Instead of offering out-of-the-box designs, many of Plant Prefab’s homes are being customized to fit the customer’s needs. As a result, many of its builds are priced in the low seven-figure range. For example, its Ray Kappe model (3100 sq. ft.) costs $2,261,000.
Customers can virtually visit and customize its various models via Plant Prefab’s website. Its services, furthermore, entail rebuilds after a given area has been destroyed by wildfire. Additionally, those rebuilt homes are fire-resistant to avoid complete destruction.
Plant Prefab has used the close to $40 million in funding that it raised to build two production factories that, together, are 82,000 square foot in size. Lastly, the firm became the first Certified B Corporation that is dedicated to sustainable housing construction.
Sources: Crunchbase, Plant Prefab
5. Method Homes
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington Founder(s): Mark Rylant, Brian Abramson Year Founded: 2007
Method Homes’ founders, despite having launched the business right before the Great Financial Depression, have managed to create one of America’s biggest prefab manufacturers – without taking on a cent of funding. Its perseverance is even more impressive considering that the founders only sold two homes in 2008 and 18 in 2010.
Its pre-builds are often tailored to the customer’s preferences. Therefore, its home prices range anywhere from low six- to mid-seven figures.
The firm’s homes are shipped across the entirety of the west coast. In total, residents from 10 states, such as California or Oregon, can order a home. Method Homes currently employs around 50 people.
Sources: Method Homes, The Business Journals
6. Connect Homes
Headquarters: Los Angeles, California Founder(s): Gordon Stott, Jared Levy Year Founded: 2011
Connect Homes offers 15 different models that fit the preference of almost any customer. The company does one or two stories and up to four bedrooms.
Due to its more complex structures, it can take between 8 to 20 months to set up a livable home. The firm’s two founders go all the way back to 2004. They launched the award-winning architecture firm Marmol. Eventually, they decided to move into the prefab industry to create more affordable housing for Americans.
So far, investors have supported the firm with $19.8 million in funding. A total of 110 people are currently employed by Connect Homes.
Sources: Connect Homes, Crunchbase
7. Mighty Buildings
Headquarters: Oakland, California Founder(s): Alexey Dubov, Dmitry Starodubtsev, Sam Ruben, Vyacheslav Solonitsyn Year Founded: 2017
Mighty Buildings creates 3D-printed homes that require 95 percent fewer labor hours and waste ten times fewer resources than traditionally constructed homes. For instance, a 350-square-foot studio can be printed in as little as 24 hours according to the firm.
Compared to Boxabl, its constructions are often larger in size. Its main model, the Mighty Quatro, is an 1176 square-foot home with two bedrooms and bathrooms each.
As opposed to many other firms on this list, Mighty Buildings tries to solve supply chain and production shortages by setting up micro-factories across the nation and by forming strategic partnerships with selected suppliers. Each micro-factory is able to produce up to 300 homes per year. Nevertheless, it also has one main production facility in Oakland, which is 79,000 sq. ft. in size.
For instance, the firm has partnered up with Palari Group to create the world’s first 3D printed Zero Net Energy neighborhoods. Reservations for the 15 homes in that neighborhood sold within a few days.
In the second quarter of 2021, the firm recorded contracted revenue of $7 million. The firm is backed by the likes of Khosla Ventures as well as Y Combinator and has raised a total of $101 million in venture funding.
Sources: Crunchbase, Mighty Homes, TechCrunch
Honorable Mentions
Apart from the companies listed above, there are plenty of other prefab builders that didn’t make the cut. In fact, there are dozens of other firms popping up across the nation to take advantage of this fast-growing housing trend.
Examples of other prefab manufacturers include Wheelhaus, Allwood, weeHouse, Ecocor, Ideabox, House Port, and plenty others.
At the same time, there are more and more architecture firms that help customers design similar homes. One of the bigger companies in the space is Sander Architects.
Boxabl, furthermore, competes against any real estate developer that manages the construction of homes.