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Martin Costas

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BOXABL

play_circle_outline Boxabl's Revolutionary Foldable Home Concept: Addressing Housing Needs Through Advanced Manufacturing and Sustainable Practices

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Martin Costas, BOXABL

Martin Costas

CFO BOXABL

Boxabl's CFO, Martin Costa, discusses the company's innovative approach to creating foldable homes using advanced manufacturing techniques. The homes are affordable, high quality, and easy to ship. With 180,000 people on the waiting list, Boxabl is focused on expanding offerings and streamlining installation. The company has raised $100 million in funding and has plans to go public. Customers can purchase homes on Boxabl's website.

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Martin Costas, BOXABL

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>> Hello, and I'm John Furrier here with theCUBE, your host here at the New York Stock Exchange Floor, our new location on the East Coast. We had all the actions. Busy week this week, climate week, UN General Assembly. Of course, conversation around innovation, sustainability. And of course we're always talking about generative AI. We'll see if we can weave that in there. Got a great guest here, Martin Costa, CFO of Boxabl, innovative foldable home concept impacting the housing market. They're in the housing revolution. Martin, thanks for coming on theCUBE here at the NYSC.

>> Thank you for inviting me.

>> So you guys are doing some really innovative things. There's a housing revolution. There's a huge need. Sustainability is a huge topic this week and just in general, climate change, among other things. You guys are in the middle of it. Explain what you guys do and then we'll dive in.

>> Correct. Yeah. Well, the fundamentals behind the company is that most of the things that you use in life nowadays, they are built in an advanced manufacturing facility. The reason as everybody knows is cost, availability, quality and even sustainability, which is a real important issue nowadays. But your house, your house is built in a very old school type of approach, which is the stakes in the field is taking 18 month in the best case scenario to build a house. So ideally what we're doing is transitioning the house into a manufacturing. When you do these type of things, you're going to face a couple of very big challenges. One of them is the logistics side. You cannot ship the house in a cost-effective way. Very big stuff. So we have 80 patents on how to fold our solution in order to have a cost-effective shipping. And on the top of that, we build houses in a very standard way, very similar to a car industry. So that is allowing us to actually came out with a very affordable cost and a very, I would say, flexible solution at the time that you need to have an installation as a home.

>> Give a taste on to what you guys are doing. Scope, the opportunity, supply chain, the benefits you guys have. What's the innovation?

>> Clearly, it's the shipping. The shipping is a very important aspect of the company because again, when you're shipping a house, you need to cut the road, you need to build a ridge, you need an escort and so on. With our houses, you can put two in a truck and you're good to go. No additional at help. They fall from a 20 by 20 is our studio casita. It goes to 20 by 8. So it's fairly a normal type of shipping. On the other hand, again, as I sell... If you think about the car industry, when you build something that is standard, it's very cost-effective, very quality-effective. So transition the house into the manufacturing facility in a production line with advanced manufacturing will translate in volume, which is what we need now. 7 million houses are missing in affordable housing, will translate in cost. Our studio casita for example, MSRP 60K and we're translating quality and sustainability,

>> You're the Henry Ford of housing,

>> Something similar, something similar.

>> Well, I mean this is what we're talking about here. You guys have innovated on the process. Clearly process improvement, that's a key part of your value proposition. Business model is a better product, faster install, build and lower cost. So you provide a better product at lower cost. It's good model.

>> Yeah, it is. So it's interesting because if you think about the reason this model, yes we have a huge innovation, 80 patents on how to fold the house. But in reality, we're using a technology that exists. We are not coming with something extremely new. It is like we have advanced manufacturing, we have automation, we have all these synergies in another industry. So we are just putting the two things together and going on.

>> I mean you're going to have a lot of people be like, "Well, my in-laws now want to move in." There's no-

>> Excuse....

>> not to have that ADU in the backyard.

>> Well, actually we have 180,000 people that they put their name in a waiting list now.

>> Yeah. So tell us about the backlogs. What's the demand like? Give us a taste for the demand and where you guys are at?

>> That's an incredible question. It's really good because the reality is a lot of people are thinking, "Hey guys, you were around since 2017. We have the first product 2021, but what your revenue is not kicking off? What is happening there?" The reality is we were approved in Arizona in a Mueller house permitting only in December 2023. The permitting in US is very fragmented. Everything in the States is different. The federal level is different. A lot of houses that you see outside, tiny house, things like that, they're not real building. It's not something that you can live permanent. So we're approving in Arizona in December. We're now approving California and New Mexico. We're working to be approved in Texas and Nevada very, very shortly. And what is happening now is we see the revenue starting to come. So we have 180,000 people that they put an in a waiting list. We're moving those guys into a pipeline. Our pipeline that we are contacting is our 700 people now and our revenue is starting to show. So Q1 was really small because again, we were recently approved. Only six units. About 40 contracts in Q2, and now in Q3, we have already like 80 contracts. So you can see the progress has started.

>> So you guys are approaching inflation point from a growth standpoint.

>> Absolutely.

>> As CFO, what is that growth strategy? How do you look at it? Is it supply chain management or material management? Obviously you get the process down and is it the permitting? Is that the bottleneck? If there was a blocker, what would it be and what do you guys doing to unblock it?

>> Permitting is really fragmented, but , I believe that our government is doing the best that they can in order to have the people living in safe houses, areas that they are in well . It's something that I wouldn't complain about that. Certainly they have a lot of room to improve and make it easier. But it's a complex situation because you're talking about where the people is living. I think another block that we have is the last mile when you do installation, the network that we're building with the contractors that they do the last mile of our business because we're a manufacturing company, is something that we're putting a big effort to grow. And just the last leg is we are now transitioning, developing new products, new boxes, new houses that they're going to be applicable primarily to the business to business. So DR Horton for example, is one of our investors. So we are creating a product jointly with them that is going to be very, very applicable for developments. So we see that the volume will come very, very fast on those.

>> As you sit in your boardroom and you guys are making investment decisions, what are the top priorities?

>> It's always capacity. We are trading all the dollars that we're getting into a company against capacity and obviously a big portion is going into R&D. We're an innovation company so we invest in the future. The house is only the beginning. There is a lot of products that we are thinking about that they are very related with the house.

>> It's a revolution and make it easier, and again, to stand it up. What are some of the quick highlights in terms of states where people can buy it? Give us a quick plug, .

>> You can go online, you can order your casita. What is going to happen is we are going to obviously need the address where you're going to put the casita. We will do a studio where gave a preliminary quote on this installation because the casita, what is needing is obviously foundation, the utilities line close by. So we will quote for that local work to be done. And if you agree, we will deliver a casita to your-

>> So you guys can manage the whole thing turnkey with your suppliers and your partner network?

>> With my partner network, yes and absolutely. And once you receive the casita, the interesting thing is to unfold it, it takes two hours. So once you have the prep plan-

>> Well, we're going to need a couple of Casitas for theCUBE, build some studios for us, fold it up.

>> .

>> Thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Where can people find more information on Boxabl and what should they know? What's the big story? How would you describe the elevator pitch and how do they buy and get online?

>> Yeah, again, everything is in boxabl.com. It's very easy, it's very intuitive. You can buy your own casita. If you're a developer, you can actually go into a developer area. You can actually propose to partner with us. We are very open and we're even considering growing international. So we have a lot of inquiries for international partners that we are-

>> And the company status funding...

>> We were very, very lucky, honestly. We raised about a hundred million dollars already, primarily through Regulation A. We're now looking to move into the next level out of Series A. But honestly, we are right now open. We are receiving investment in Reg A, So we're-

>> All right. So when you guys go public here at the NYSC, I'll say, "I knew you when you were just hitting the scene."

>> I cannot comment to that, but I need to be quiet.

>> Well, I mean, Martin, I love what you guys are doing. I think it's really great for society and also it's great for homeowners who are trying to get in versus private equity and build families and also get leverage out of their value of their property. It's a big part of getting that leverage.

>> Yeah, I think quite honestly, and another thing is I realized in this journey that moving people out of poverty without the house is impossible. And this solution I think is going to play a very-

>> I mean, governments could actually say, "Hey, I want to stand up some housing." money should go.

>> That would be .

>> homeless. Final question on products. Casita. What are some of the mixes? What are you seeing? What's the portfolio look like for availability for the innovative foldable home concept?

>> Yeah. Right now, we have the casita model, which is a 20 by 20 studio. It's 661 square feet. It's coming full, meaning that you have full kitchen, full bathroom, living area, a bedroom area, and we deliver with appliances the house. So it's completely full. In the incoming, I will say couple of months, we're going to be releasing new products, which are pretty much bigger units, but then other things are coming. I don't really want to comment about that. But the future is bright. We did develop already new product. It's a matter of now doing the prototypes and go to market.

>> Martin, thank you so much for coming on for theCUBE-

>> Thank you very much....

>> here at the NYSE. I'm John Furrier, the host of theCUBE. Thanks for watching.