Willdan Buys Mantis Innovation for $285 Million to Chase Data Center and Industrial Energy Work
Willdan Group is buying Mantis Innovation, a Houston energy services firm, for $285 million in cash. It’s a big step for Willdan, an engineering and energy efficiency consultancy that mostly works for utilities and public agencies. Mantis gives it a much stronger foothold with private commercial and industrial customers, data centers among them.
Mantis employs more than 220 people and expects about $120 million in net revenue this year, with adjusted EBITDA margins in the low 20s. It sells building controls, energy efficiency projects, energy procurement advice and facility management to data centers, food and beverage plants, hospitals and other commercial sites.
Willdan will pay for it with a new $250 million term loan, which is fully underwritten, plus cash on hand and its existing credit lines. The board approved it unanimously. The deal still needs Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust clearance and is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Willdan says it will add to earnings in 2027. Jefferies advised Mantis.
What Willdan is buying
CEO Mike Bieber named three things. Energy procurement, where Mantis helps large users buy power and gas. Industrial energy efficiency. And the growing demand for new energy-efficient data centers.
That last one is the headline. Data center operators are fighting for grid capacity, and every megawatt saved on cooling or controls is a megawatt available for compute. Efficiency used to be a cost-cutting pitch. For data centers it’s now a capacity pitch, and that’s a much easier sale.
Energy procurement fits the same story. Power prices are climbing in many US markets as data center load grows, and big industrial buyers want help locking in contracts. Mantis sells that advice, and it tends to lead to follow-on project work.
The price
At $285 million against $120 million in revenue and EBITDA in the low 20s percent, Willdan is paying roughly 10 to 12 times this year’s EBITDA. That’s a full price for a services firm, but not a crazy one given where data center demand is heading.
The bigger shift is in the customer mix. Utility programs are steady, but they depend on regulators and rate cases. Private industrial and data center clients spend on their own schedule, and right now that schedule is fast.
Willdan is betting the efficiency business follows the load. So far, that’s where the load is going.