Nexiite was the secret, and for a long time nobody could say exactly how to make it at scale. It is a concrete-like material developed in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and the company that grew around it, Nexii, set out to turn it into prefabricated walls and roofs. The pitch was seductive: greener buildings, put up faster.
Nexii was a Vancouver-based startup built on that Moose Jaw material, with plants in Moose Jaw and Squamish, British Columbia. In September 2021 it became a unicorn, valued above US$1 billion, which Canadian press called the fastest in the country to reach that mark.
What nobody outside the company saw clearly was how much the product itself still needed work.
It gathered celebrity along the way. Actor Michael Keaton took an ownership stake in 2021 and was expected to take an active role in a planned plant near Pittsburgh. Former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson joined as an executive. Customers reportedly included Starbucks, Popeyes, Marriott and Walmart. A nine-storey Marriott Courtyard in Nanaimo opened in early 2023.
In summer 2022 Nexii closed a US$45 million equity financing at a valuation of around C$2 billion, nearly double the year before. In total it had raised over US$250 million.
What nobody outside the company saw clearly was how much the product itself still needed work. In 2021 Nexii re-engineered Nexiite, and the redesign soaked up large amounts of capital while growth lagged expectations. At the same time it pushed hard into the United States. A licensing deal for a facility in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, fell apart when the counterparty did not pay a US$5 million licensing fee and could not perform. Nexii spent more than a year on that project trying to protect its brand.
The costs were higher than the revenue. In April 2023 it defaulted on interest to its senior secured lenders. Its CEO Stephen Sidwell stepped down in October, and Robertson left in November. In January 2024 a British Columbia court granted creditor protection, with more than C$109 million owed to creditors.
The business was ultimately sold in a court-approved deal for C$500,000 plus the assumption of more than C$20 million in debt.
For a founder, the story is a warning about sequence. A material has to be proven and repeatable before it is licensed, financed and scaled across a continent. Nexii raised the money of a finished company when the product was not yet finished.