Facilitating Innovation in
Infrastructure Software
The Bentley Systems Acceleration Initiatives launched in 2020 to help facilitate innovation in software for the design, construction, and operation of all types of physical infrastructure. A key focus of the Acceleration Initiatives are to accelerate innovation in the emerging category of infrastructure digital twins.
Acceleration Initiatives Charter
The Acceleration Initiatives drive innovation through the following four strategies:
- Acquisition of software companies with innovative solutions for the design, construction or operation of infrastructure.
- Focus on Strategic investments in infrastructure digital twin software companies through Bentley iTwins Ventures
- Providing the Open Source iTwin Platform to enable third party software developers to create digital twin solutions or to enable their existing solutions to participate in digital twin workflows.
- Incubation of digital integrators, technologies, and marketplaces focused on providing services to deliver and implement digital twin solutions.
- Committed to accelerating opportunities to support diversity.
Acquisitions
Since it’s inception, Bentley has grown its infrastructure offerings via strategic acquisitions. To date, we have acquired more than 120 companies and/or technologies that supplement our product offerings within our targeted vertical industries. Below are some of our most recent acquisitions.
Strategic Investments
Bentley iTwin Ventures
Bentley iTwin Ventures is a corporate venture capital fund initiative sponsored by Bentley Systems, Incorporated. It invests in and helps catalyze the growth of companies developing innovative technologies, products, and services which intensify the infrastructure digital twin ecosystem. We are looking to provide seed or early to mid-round financing to AEC companies developing applications or cloud services along with access to subject-matter expertise, sales and marketing channels and integration services. Visit BentleyiTwinVentures.com.
Bentley iTwin Partner Program
The iTwin Partner Program is dedicated to building a community of organizations who share our vision of creating an open ecosystem for infrastructure digital twins. Our partner program supports the development of applications built on the iTwin platform and helps organizations take their digital twin applications to market. Click here to learn more.
Incubation of digital integrators, technologies,
and businesses
The Acceleration Initiatives help drive digital twin advancement via digital integrators, development, marketing and sales of applications and services that span several infrastructure assets, investments in startup companies and acquisitions.
We cover a wide array of industry verticals such as transportation, water distribution, electrical utilities, oil and gas, renewables, process industries, discrete manufacturing, and more. Our depth of experience ensures we provide solutions for design, analysis, construction, simulation, asset management, and performance within an asset’s lifecycle.
Advancing Infrastructure Digital Twins
There are several strategies the Acceleration Initiatives employ to advance the usage of digital twins amongst designers, contractors and owners.
- Acquire IP in new sectors to augment Bentley’s current portfolio of products and services
- Invest in New High Growth Initiatives such as AI/ML, digital construction management or infrastructure IoT
- Expand Bentley and their third-party ecosystem of products in specific geographic regions through new commercial avenues
- Provide digital integrators to help “wire up” disparate workflows via a digital twin
Founded in 2019, Digital Construction Works, Inc., (DCW) provides digital automation, integration, and fit-for-purpose solutions to automate and optimize the construction process from planning to design through to operations. DCW is transforming the construction industry from its legacy document-centric paradigm and simplifying and enabling digital automated workflows and processes, technology integration, and digital twinning services for infrastructure. DCW is a Topcon Positioning Group and Bentley Systems joint venture company.
Nadhi connects the people, processes and technologies required to complete construction projects on budget and on time. Their flagship solutions, nPulse, helps capital project owners, real estate developers and EPC contractors reduce project delays by combining critical decision support and predictive analytics in a simple-to-use construction project management platform. Designed to drive real-time collaboration across multiple organizations, the platform enables project managers with the critical solution of interconnecting their data silos spanning documents, schedules, quality, budgets, issues and risks, resources, and materials. The nPulse platform has been used by over 2000 customers in more than 250 diverse projects within a variety of construction and critical infrastructure industries,
Digital twins for telecom towers is an initiative that we invested in to support the rapid succession from 4G LTE to 5G and the digital transformation tower owner operators are embracing to manage their critical tower assets.
Bentley OpenTower products are unique in that they meet the needs of both engineers and owner operators with a complete lifecycle tower solution. OpenTower makes it easy to efficiently design, model, and visualize communication towers. OpenTower brings to life a digital twin to provide intelligence for planning, visualization, and inspection. By integrating digital twin technology with existing data, tools, and systems, OpenTower provides real-time decision support with faster and more economical options for 3D visualization and predictive design.
Bentley’s Acceleration Initiatives champion women and underrepresented minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) as leaders in technology companies. Typically, only one in four tech startups have female founders, and the numbers are lower for minorities. Acquiring funding is extremely challenging. Women-led companies received less than 3 percent of U.S. investment funds in 2019, and minority-led companies accounted for only 1 percent of funding opportunities. Yet, research from McKinsey indicates that women and minority led companies are often associated with greater profitability, thus “a lack of gender diversity carries with it a major opportunity cost, both for individual tech companies and the entire sector.” Bentley’s Acceleration Initiatives recognize the funding gap for diverse startups and are committed to investing in technology companies owned and led by women and minorities.