How Boxabl Is Revolutionizing Affordable Housing With Its Unfolding House (With Customers Like Elon Musk And $1 Billion in Pre-Orders)

Boxabl

When I stumbled across housing start-up Boxabl while going down a YouTube rabbit hole about affordable pre-fab housing, my mind was blown.

Their initial product called ‘Casita’ is a 375 sq ft ADU delivered with a full size bathroom, kitchen, appliances and tall ceilings with big windows for under $50k - that can be shipped on a regular flatbed trailer, and be unfolded and set up in two hours.

Elon Musk apparently lives in one - and the company has reportedly got more than $1 billion in pre-orders, via a 47,000 person waitlist.

This wildly innovative product has the potential to help solve our affordable housing and homelessness problems in cities around the world.

I had to find out more and tracked down Founder Galiano Tiramani to learn more about his journey- and how you can invest in the company.

Afdhel Aziz: Galiano, welcome. Please tell us a little bit about Boxabl and the product you have created?

Galiano Tiramani: We've got a new way to build housing that's better, cheaper, faster and can help solve the worldwide housing crisis. The goal of Boxabl is to dramatically reduce housing costs by making building construction compatible with assembly line mass production. We see a huge opportunity to transition the world from building by hand, to using the same factory principles that we use for all our other modern products. Our first product is a 20' x 20' prefab studio apartment that unfolds from a shipping container size. We can install it in any customer's backyard in about an hour. Right now we are setting up a massive factory in North Las Vegas that should produce thousands of houses per year.

Galiano Tiramani, Founder of Boxabl

Aziz: I love the story of how the idea came about out of your father Paolo’s frustration - can you please share that?

Tiramani: The original idea to fold the houses came from Paolo Tiramani, one of the founders. He built a house using factory built room modules. He experienced many problems and expenses related to shipping the oversized loads. Traditional factory built housing ships wide load room modules that don't fit on the highway, this model doesn't work and we think it’s the reason factory built housing has failed to scale. Shipping wide loads means extra follow cars, restricted routes, restricted travel times, police escorts and more. Boxabl rooms fold up from large 20ft rooms down to small 8ft highway legal loads. This enables a new era of factory built mass production of homes on a scale never done before.

Aziz: There are so many innovative things about the way you’re approaching housing, starting with the foldable concept but also the idea of mass production - what will be the capacity of the factory when it goes live and how many houses can you build a year?

Boxabl's first product is a 20' x 20' prefab studio apartment that unfolds from a shipping container size.

Tiramani: At Boxabl we didn't just fix the shipping problem. Solving the shipping problem just made everything else possible. We re-engineered the buildings selecting different materials and manufacturing methods to make buildings that outperform on energy ratings, fire resistance, wind resistance and more. The main goal of our redesign was to make something that's more compatible with the factory. Our initial manufacturing plant should produce one house every 90 minutes, and hopefully 3,600 per year.

Aziz: What has been the response from people around the world?

Tiramani: Since announcing our first product, the Casita, we have been amazed by the huge reaction we got from the public. Thousands of people all around the world have reached out to us and expressed interest in our solution. They know we are onto something. This includes over 40,000 people who have put their name on a waitlist for the product. Thousands of people have invested in our company. And millions of people have seen our viral videos. It has been very exciting!

Aziz:  Congratulations! Finally, tell us a little about the new investment round you are announcing and where people can go to find out more?

Tiramani: We are going live with a Regulation A investment offering. Boxabl will be selling shares in the company for $0.79 to raise money for our factory. Everyone can participate. You can learn more at invest.boxabl.com.