PCB Technologies Buys Gorilla Circuits: The Onshore Shift Reaches High-Mix, Low-Volume

On 8 October 2026, PCB Technologies (TASE: PCBT), based in Migdal Haemek, Israel, announced a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Gorilla Circuits of San Jose, California, at an enterprise value of USD 120 million, an EBITDA multiple of 7.6 on the average of 2025 and the first half of 2026.

The price is interesting. The strategic logic is more interesting, because it is a template that other manufacturers are likely to follow.

What was bought

Gorilla Circuits has operated in Silicon Valley for more than twenty years, serving the local PCB fabrication and electronics manufacturing ecosystem. Its profile is specific: high-mix, low-volume runs, development-stage products, and short lead times, with more than 700 active customers. In the first half of 2026, roughly 35% of its sales came from semiconductor testing and about 40% from aerospace and defence.

The financial trajectory explains the multiple: revenue rose from USD 69.4 million in 2024 to USD 91.9 million in 2025, with USD 54.9 million in the first half of 2026 alone. Adjusted EBITDA moved from USD 3.0 million to USD 13.6 million across the same period, hitting USD 8.9 million in H1 2026. Orders totalled USD 100 million in 2025 with a 2026 run rate of about USD 131 million, and backlog stood near USD 38 million as of 31 August 2026.

Why a foreign manufacturer pays a premium for a small US shop

The stated rationale is geography, not capacity. A physical production base in Silicon Valley lets the combined company bid on substantial US contracts that mandate onshore fabrication and engineering proximity. The buyer also intends to introduce its own advanced substrates, microelectronics and IC packaging capability to the US market.

Read that alongside the China+1 and nearshoring trend — capacity additions in Mexico, Vietnam and India serving North American and European demand — and a pattern is clear. For a growing slice of programmes, the qualification question is no longer only "who can build this at the best total cost" but "where are they allowed to build it".

What this changes for buyers

• Split your BOM by end market. If any of your programmes touch aerospace, defence, semiconductor test or government-linked work, assume onshore or allied-country fabrication may be required. Plan that routing early rather than at the RFQ.
• Expect fewer independent shops in high-mix, low-volume. This segment is now strategically contested. Consolidation tends to bring pricing discipline, so the value you extract from a supplier shifts toward engineering responsiveness, material traceability and honest lead times.
• Treat process documentation as an asset. The value of a multi-site supplier is that a qualified process can be replicated. Buyers who insist on documented process parameters, material certificates and lot traceability get requalified faster when their supplier's footprint changes.
• Re-examine your second source. If one of your two qualified suppliers has just been acquired, the terms you agreed with them are the ones most likely to change first.

Where we sit in this

We are not going to argue that geography does not matter, because for some programmes it decides the award. We are a Dongguan factory running 1 to 32 layer FR-4 boards from prototype through small and medium volume, shipping EXW Dongguan, and our buyers are overwhelmingly commercial, industrial, medical and consumer programmes where total cost, material availability and engineering response still decide.

What we can promise is that we will tell you at the RFQ stage if your requirement looks like one we are not the right fit for, rather than after you have paid for tooling. If your programme does need onshore fabrication, say so up front and we will help you scope it honestly; if it does not, we will quote against the laminate allocation we can actually hold.