Katerra (2015-2021)
Katerra launched with a plan to vertically integrate architecture, factory-built components and on-site assembly, promising to cut construction costs and schedules. SoftBank's Vision Fund poured money in, and the company grew to thousands of employees across multiple factories. It filed for bankruptcy in June 2021.
Projects stalled, factories were sold or closed, and hundreds of millions in invested capital was written down.
Investors moved away from capital-heavy construction companies and toward software and narrowly scoped hardware, a shift that shaped the funds that followed.
Katerra is the cautionary case behind Zacua's stated preference for early-stage checks and equipment that gets validated on real job sites rather than factory networks built in advance.
