News

Allentown, NJ (June 7, 2023) — Allentown, LLC (“Allentown”), a portfolio company of Aterian Investment Partners (“Aterian”), is pleased to announce the acquisition of Northwestern Systems Corporation (“BetterBuilt” or the “Company”).

Headquartered in Delta, British Columbia, Canada, BetterBuilt is the leading North American vivarium washing equipment manufacturer that designs, engineers, manufactures, and coordinates the installation of vivarium-focused washing equipment and automation solutions. BetterBuilt represents the first strategic add-on investment made by Allentown since Aterian’s acquisition in April 2022.

Allentown’s acquisition of BetterBuilt strengthens Allentown’s market leadership in vivarium capital solutions within the attractive biomedical pre-clinical research industry. BetterBuilt’s solutions help address many of the challenges of operating a lab by leveraging the Company’s design, automation, and engineering expertise. This partnership significantly expands Allentown’s leading product and service offering for its global customer base and strengthens its unique abilities to provide end-to-end solutions to the market.

“We could not be more excited to partner with BetterBuilt and look forward to welcoming the team to the Allentown family” stated John Coiro, Chief Executive Officer at Allentown. “We are strong believers in BetterBuilt’s technology and look forward to working with the team to continue its momentum. With our partnership, Allentown and BetterBuilt will be better positioned to serve our overlapping and complementary customer bases by providing our customers with a one-stop solution to address their vivarium needs. Furthermore, both companies share common, family/founder cultures around respecting employees and providing customer-centric solutions to the market, so we are thrilled by the fit. Allentown is looking forward to continuing to be the acquisition partner of choice in this industry.”   

Harry Lim, President and co-owner of BetterBuilt, stated “This partnership will continue the vision of BetterBuilt that we have built over many years. It is clear that both BetterBuilt and Allentown have continuously developed and refined through the years a strong culture of producing state-of-the-art products for our customers. We are confident we have found the right partner to help us in our next stage of growth.”

Brandon Bethea, Co-Founder and Partner at Aterian, and Daniel Phan, Managing Director said “The acquisition of BetterBuilt represents an important milestone for Allentown. By adding BetterBuilt’s highly engineered products and the Company’s talented team, Allentown offers a more fulsome suite of lab housing, washing and sterilization solutions aimed at solving some of the most difficult aspects of managing a vivarium. We would like to congratulate the BetterBuilt team for building a special business and we couldn’t be more enthusiastic about the opportunity together. This partnership will expand our addressable market and establish Allentown as a proven acquisition platform as we transform Allentown into a broader solutions provider in the life sciences market. We look forward to working on post-close initiatives across the combined company.”

Dentons Canada LLP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP advised Aterian on the legal aspects of this transaction.

About BetterBuilt Components Corporation

Founded in the 1950s and based in Delta, British Columbia, Canada, BetterBuilt is the largest independent North American vivarium washing equipment manufacturer that designs, engineers, manufactures, and coordinates the installation of vivarium-focused washing equipment and related solutions. BetterBuilt produces non-robotic automation washing solutions that solve the vivarium lab’s largest challenge, cage cleaning, with state-of-the-art, reliable, elegant and low-maintenance equipment offerings.

For more information, please visit https://nsc-betterbuilt.com

About Allentown

Allentown was family-founded in 1968 by the Coiro family with its origins in manufacturing animal housing solutions for the local concentrated Northeast academic research institutions. Today, Allentown has expanded to become a one-stop shop for equipment and solutions to the pre-clinical biomedical research and broader life sciences sectors, with a focus on vivarium solutions. Allentown now has a global reach and serves customers ranging from academic research institutions, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, private laboratories, governmental research institutions, contract research organizations and everywhere in between.

For more information, please visit https://www.allentowninc.com 

About Aterian Investment Partners

Aterian Investment Partners is a private equity firm that invests in industry-leading, middle market businesses. In collaboration with management, Aterian supports investments throughout an organization, from people to processes, equipment, technology, and social governance, among others. With offices in New York and Florida, Aterian has raised cumulative equity commitments of more than $1.5 billion since its founding in 2009.

For more information, please visit http://www.aterianpartners.com