In five years, the Proto companies, which include Protocase and subsidiaries 45Drives, Protospace Mfg and Protomentum, plan to generate $1 billion in annual revenue, according to Protocase co-founder Doug Milburn.

Much of that growth is slated to happen in Wilmington.

“All of our growth in the near future will be focused here,” said Milburn, who also serves as Protocase’s vice president and board chairman. “We want to give enough headroom that ideally all the growth from here to there would be in Wilmington.”

In 2024, Protocase, a rapid manufacturing and prototyping firm based in Sydney, Nova Scotia, selected the Port City for its first U.S. expansion. Since then, the company has leased office space in downtown Wilmington’s Skyline Center and established a production facility in the U.S. 421 corridor.

As of mid-July, Milburn said the Proto companies employed approximately 85 people in the Wilmington area, with more hiring expected in the coming months.

The firm’s local capabilities are also expanding. The production facility recently added a new laser-cutting machine, which, Milburn said, allows the company to cut full pieces of sheet metal in Wilmington instead of shipping cut pieces from the firm’s Canadian facility. Some of the metal sheets are used by 45Drives – which manufactures data storage and computer servers – while others go directly to customers, he said.

Protocase officials have plans to establish a campus with space for each subsidiary company. Milburn said they’re looking to build a campus of small, clustered buildings that can be integrated into the Wilmington community.

The company has narrowed its search to two sites and expects to select a campus location by the end of the year. In the meantime, Milburn said, the company is preparing to lease an additional 30,000 square feet in the U.S. 421 corridor. The new space will be used for machining operations, which Milburn expects to be up and running in the next four months.

“We have enough safety valve between our two 421 properties that that should allow us to finish our plans, get land and get a manufacturing building up,” Milburn said, “to allow us not to be hemmed in.”

Protocase recently announced plans to host its first Velocity Summit in Wilmington. The Nov. 17 event aims to bring together defense, industry and policy stakeholders to discuss how the U.S. military can increase capacity by accelerating innovation, manufacturing and deployment.