Metal fabricator and longtime contract furniture supplier Rapid-Line Inc. is dipping its toe further into the industry in a deal for a Grand Rapids-based upscale hospitality furniture maker.
The employee-owned Rapid-Line is consolidating Studio Wise Design into its 100,000-square-foot facility at 1475 Gezon Parkway SW in Wyoming.
Founded in 1926, Rapid-Line is an employee-owned metal fabricator for customers in industries such as office furniture, outdoor furniture, all-terrain vehicles and medical equipment.
Studio Wise Design was founded in 2008 and got its start designing furniture primarily for restaurants in West Michigan. The company has since completed projects for various culinary settings and resorts, including Gordon Ramsay restaurants, Marriott Hotels and Hard Rock Resorts.
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The deal will enable Rapid-Line to diversify its business with product manufacturing and help Studio Wise continue to grow and expand its new e-commerce platform for efficient quoting and ordering, according to executives.
J.T. Weis, managing director at Rapid-Line, told Crain’s Grand Rapids the company pursued an acquisition to help strengthen its business model. Weis said over several years, he got to know Troy Bosworth, the founder of Studio Wise, and that company proved to be the right fit.
“Rather than making just a component and supplying that, which we were doing, we wanted to acquire a company that had a complete product line, an interesting product line, (and) something with a B2B e-commerce platform,” Weis said. “(Studio Wise) checked all the boxes.”
According to Weis, Rapid-Line also recently invested several million dollars in new laser and robotics technology to help the company remain competitive, which will help support the manufacturing of Studio Wise’s products.
In recent years, Studio Wise had been focusing on efficiency. The company previously handled its own manufacturing and construction build-outs for local projects. After launching its own product line a decade ago, Studio Wise shifted its attention to design and national sales as the business grew.
The company decided to outsource manufacturing and grow with a small team, Bosworth said.
“We’ve taken an approach of: How do we serve the industry with what they want in the most effective and efficient way?” Bosworth told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.
The acquisition will help take Studio Wise to the next level, especially as the company at the end of 2023 launched its B2B e-commerce platform that allows customers to easily customize projects and get immediate quotes and pricing, Bosworth said.
By the end of last year, the company had developed “a complete product that’s customizable where customers can go in and specify a whole restaurant project, but also in a modern platform like what you would experience if you were just buying residential furniture where you can go in and find your price and place your order immediately,” Bosworth said.
Weis also echoed the platform’s “incredible gain on efficiency,” which he said was a compelling aspect of the acquisition.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The companies did not engage outside advisers on the deal.
Going forward, Studio Wise’s team of three employees will remain with the company, and Bosworth said he is eager to shift his focus toward product design.
“I’m a product designer, but I’ve also been the president of the company and national sales manager and very involved in the company,” Bosworth said. “My goal has always been to find a place within the company where I’m designing new products … and I found an organization that was looking for a company just like mine. Now they have the ability to take what I’ve done and grow it, and I can continue to be a part of that and support it through product design.”
Rapid-Line employs roughly 100 people, and the company operates under an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Weis noted the acquisition will boost employees’ ownership and also likely spur the creation of more jobs in the future.
“It’s all about growth for us,” Weis said.