Katerra: The promise of prefab
Inspiration struck. That’s how many start-up stories begin — with the ambition for disruption and a messianic belief in the power of technology to redraw the boundaries of possibility. Apple began in a garage to transform personal computing; Google emerged from a Stanford dorm room to become the gateway to the internet. But clearly, not all good ideas end up as great businesses. The reason is simple: Ideas don’t exist in vacuo. Rather, they unfold within the specific constraints of industries, regulations and supply chains. When these realities get sidelined, “great ideas” risk becoming even more spectacular failures. Few examples illustrate this disconnect as clearly as Katerra Industries — the SoftBank Vision Fund (SVF) backed construction tech (contech) start-up that promised to revolutionise the industry through offsite manufacturing and modular construction (see Table 1).
