Principal Mineral, a Southlake company founded two years ago, has acquired Isola Group, a maker of printed circuit board materials whose roots reach back to 1912. The deal, paired with about $280 million in new funding, accelerates the young company’s drive to rebuild the U.S. supply chain for the critical materials behind advanced electronics.

Principal Mineral is building what it calls the “missing midstream” of the critical-materials supply chain, the manufacturing layer between raw metals and finished electronics that has largely moved overseas.

The round behind that effort, Principal Mineral announced, was co-led by Overmatch Ventures and The New Industrial Corporation, with participation from J2 Ventures, Ensemble VC, and other new and existing investors, alongside a credit facility from Lane42 Investment Partners. The capital will go toward integrating Isola, adding manufacturing capacity and funding technology and supply-chain work across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Together with Principal Mineral’s Camden Copper, the Isola deal brings together two foundational materials used in advanced PCBs, copper foil and copper-clad laminates, which the company said strengthens its ability to serve customers across the electronics sector.

“The addition of Isola advances our mission to build resilient supply chains that power the world’s most important technologies,” Adam Johnson, CEO and co-founder of Principal Mineral, said in a statement. “Together with our existing operations, Isola strengthens the manufacturing capabilities that underpin advanced electronics, helping reduce supply-chain vulnerabilities while ensuring customers have reliable access to the materials needed for aerospace, communications and satellites, AI infrastructure, and energy applications.”

Folding in Isola, a century-old supplier

The combined company will employ about 1,300 people across 10 facilities worldwide, according to Principal Mineral, spanning manufacturing, R&D, technical support, and sales. Adam Johnson will serve as CEO, and Principal Mineral’s existing leadership team will manage the business. Sean Mirshafiei, Isola’s president, will lead day-to-day operations there, reporting to Johnson, while Isola CEO Travis Kelly transitions to an advisory role.

“Over the past several years, Isola’s global team has worked hard to transform this company by strengthening our operations, expanding our technologies, and consistently delivering for our customers in a challenging industry environment,” said Isola CEO Kelly. “I’m very proud of what we have accomplished, and as a result, we are in a position of strength to begin this next chapter with Principal Mineral. I know that their commitment to growing our people, capabilities, and global footprint will help Isola build on its century of excellence and capture the significant opportunities ahead.”

In the acquisition of Isola, Principal Mineral said it would continue the company’s track record of partnership with employees, customers, suppliers, and local communities, and its commitment to responsible integration and operational continuity throughout its facilities.

“This is an investment in continuity for Isola’s employees and customers, and in the operational stability and technical expertise that have defined the company for more than a century,” said Wes Spurlock, COO and co-founder of Principal Mineral. “We’re putting long-term capital behind manufacturing capabilities to deliver the high-quality materials that people depend on every day.”

Reshoring the “missing midstream”

The Isola purchase is Principal Mineral’s second major acquisition in two years. In 2025 it acquired and relaunched Camden Copper in South Carolina, which the trade outlet PCD&F has described as the last U.S. plant producing electrodeposited copper foil, a defense-grade material used in printed circuit boards. The company said that deal preserved local jobs.

Isola, whose ownership passed to an investor group led by Cerberus Capital Management in 2017, has made copper-clad laminates for circuit boards since the 1960s.

In an April commentary in The Dallas Morning News, CEO Adam Johnson wrote that the U.S. ceded “the ‘midstream’ steps that turn ore and scrap into the metals, foils, and powders that underpin critical technologies,” allowing that work to move overseas, “especially to China.” Each “roll of foil that leaves Camden is one less critical component that has to transit a contested sea lane,” he wrote.

Putting it in local terms, “the F-35s assembled in Fort Worth” to “the data centers and telecom networks that have sprouted in North Texas,” he wrote, advanced systems “depend on secure supplies of metals, magnets, and copper-rich electronics.”

Founded in 2024, Principal Mineral focuses on rebuilding the domestic supply chain for critical materials, including scaling strategic materials for advanced electronics, communications, and defense applications.

Quincy Preston contributed to this report.

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