A genuine, made-for-TV success story that began in a Plum garage continues to play out in Western Pennsylvania.
Murrysville company FlexScreen — manufacturer of the world’s first flexible, easy-to-remove-and-install window screen — is being purchased by Pennsylvania-based RiteScreen, the country’s largest maker of door and window screens.
The sale price was not disclosed, but the company has come a long way since CEO Joe Altieri developed the prototype in his garage.
Altieri always envisioned FlexScreen as a technology company and operating multiple manufacturing facilities wasn’t necessarily his goal.
But the road to success sometimes takes unexpected detours. So when Altieri found himself on the receiving end of a 2020 deal with “Shark Tank” co-host Lori Greiner, he didn’t waste time. In a few short years, Altieri built FlexScreen into the industry disruptor he’d envisioned, opening manufacturing plants in Murrysville’s White Valley neighborhood as well as in Michigan, Georgia, South Dakota and Canada.
The acquisition by RiteScreen, headquartered north of Harrisburg, creates an industry juggernaut, Altieri said.
“They’re huge,” he said. “When you add our locations to theirs, we now have 10 locations across the U.S. that manufacture screens. I’m part of their executive team now, and we’ll be bringing FlexScreen manufacturing to their locations, while they bring traditional aluminum screen manufacturing to our locations.”
Altieri said he never envisioned FlexScreen as a manufacturing company.
“We own the intellectual property for FlexScreen, and we wanted to expand as much as possible and change the industry. So we had to manufacture for a little while,” he said. “But RiteScreen is a world-class manufacturer, so when you take the technology portion of FlexScreen and the advancements we’ve made in automation, and pair it with a manufacturer who has expertise in our industry, it really becomes an unstoppable type of relationship.”
One of Altieri’s goals, realized over the past couple years, was to create a licensing system for FlexScreen technology, for use by other companies.
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“We’re able to offer both things: If you want to buy FlexScreens, you can do that,” he said. “We’ll manufacture them for you with very short lead times. But if you want to make them yourself, we’ve created the automation so that a company can make FlexScreen in a much less labor-intensive way than traditional screens.”
As FlexScreen began taking on market share in the industry, it attracted the attention of RiteScreen officials.
“They approached us not as a competitive threat, but as a complement to what they do,” Altieri said. “When you’re combining businesses, you hope one-plus-one equals three, in the sense that the combination improves both, but since our industry is so small, we just see this as a huge opportunity. We’ve been talking that one-plus-one equals five for us.”
Part of the acquisition will include additional jobs at the Borland Farm Road plant in Murrysville, as RiteScreen brings its traditional screen manufacturing into the facility. Altieri said the total number of new positions hasn’t been finalized.
“Our little FlexScreen facility in Murrysville is going to be a major manufacturer for us and RiteScreen,” Altieri said. “We’re going to be adding jobs to the area, which makes me feel good. We didn’t sell and all of a sudden the stakes get pulled up. We’re going to grow this and bring opportunities here, which is great.”
Altieri is also going back on the television show that helped catapult FlexScreen onto the big stage.
The March 21 episode of “Shark Tank” on ABC will include a segment revisiting where the company is at today, five years after Greiner chose to partner with them.
“They came in and filmed an update episode a couple months ago, because we were growing so fast,” he said. “One of our licensees, Champion Windows, came in and talked about using our screens in their sales.”
The RiteScreen deal was, in large part, what Altieri envisioned when he first created FlexScreen.
“When I started, I had three goals,” Altieri said. “I wanted to take care of my family, take care of my partners who invested a lot of money when all I had was this ugly prototype in my garage and to make FlexScreen as big as possible.”
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While he’d been approached about acquisitions before, Altieri said RiteScreen’s proposal was the one that checked all three boxes.
“We could have gone the venture capital route with an influx of cash, and I think we’d still have gotten here,” he said. “But partnering with, essentially, our biggest competitor, allows us to take advantage of what they’re already built. It’s a huge shortcut.”
The “Shark Tank” episode featuring FlexScreen will air at 8 p.m. on ABC.