Alpen High Performance raises $18M from grant, investments

LOUISVILLE — Alpen High Performance Products Inc., a high-efficiency window manufacturer in Louisville, recently raised $18 million in capital through a combination of investments and a grant from the the U.S. Department of Energy.

The $5.9 million grant from the DOE, awarded as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Recovery Act, “catalyzed an additional $12.1 million of private capital,” Alpen said in a news release. 

The money will be used to help scale up Alpen’s window production. 

“The world is waking up to the critical importance of windows in decarbonizing buildings. Alpen’s goal is to scale the advanced window market by manufacturing affordable, ultra-efficient windows and glass right here in the United States,” Alpen CEO Andrew Zech said in the release. “The funding is a great example of the power of public-private partnership. For the last five years, Alpen partnered with the DOE’s national lab system and the General Services Administration (GSA) to pioneer and test the use of ultra-thin-glass as a lightweight insulator in windows. Having proven the technology, the DOE grant and matching private capital will accelerate deployment in the market.”

The company plans to double its manufacturing space and extend its triple- and quad-pane window materials to other window manufacturers.

The move to become a supplier to other manufacturers while continuing to produce its own product line extends the reach of its high-efficiency window systems while also helping other manufacturers meet new performance standards that will be required beginning in January 2026. 

Alpen, which is opening a new production plant in Pennsylvania, initially will produce all the increased product in Louisville, where the production facility will double in size with a 50,000-square-foot addition in the same building in southwest Louisville. Some of the increased production will occur in Pennsylvania in January, and the company will eventually — no timetable has been set — create regional production centers elsewhere in the country, Zech told BizWest in May.