Breaking: HEXAGON Just Became World’s Largest AEC BIM & CAD Company

(this report courtesy of senior associate editor, Pete Evans, in London)

THIS JUST IN — Sweden’s Hexagon AB is acquiring Belgium’s Bricsys NV, making it now the largest BIM technology company in the world (by revenue) engaged in the AEC industry with access to two critical technologies that dominate the world of AEC—BIM technologies and a powerful and native DWG AutoCAD clone known as BricsCAD.

The announcement was just made less than an hour ago at Bricsys 2018, its worldwide developer and user conference taking place in London this week.

Who is Hexagon and What Does This Mean?

Architosh has already been covering the rising upstart in the BIM world, Bricsys NV of Belgium, for years. A founding member of the Open Design Alliance (ODA), they have become a world-leader in powerful DWG CAD technologies and expanding via an array of CAD and BIM technology solutions that directly challenge US-based Autodesk as well as rival CAD and BIM industry players in the non-DWG world.

01 – Live from London. A screenshot showing HEGAGON’s acquisition of Bricsys NV.

Being a smaller company, relative to its competitors, and being in Europe, one of the inevitable challenges in growing its brand and user base has been its lack of US-based offices and worldwide marketing firepower.

MORE: BricsCAD Shape for macOS—SketchUp Competitor Arrives in Market

Sweden’s Hexagon AB (styled HEXAGON) is a massive company with revenues of over EUR 3.5 billion and nearly 20,000 employees globally. 17 percent of its employees are engaged in research and development (R&D). Its tagline at the present is “manufacturing intelligence” and the company sells computer-aided engineering (CAE) software with solutions touching on finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

MORE: Hexagon Now Has End-to-End AEC Solutions Platform with Acquisition of Bricsys

Architosh has spoken over the years to at least one major CAD industry executive who mentioned Hexagon’s existence and potential to one day enter the AEC industry and disrupt it. That day has come today.

Architosh Is Live in London—More to Come

Senior associate editor, Pete Evans, AIA, is in London at Bricsys 2018 Conference covering the announcements. We will have more to post soon.

More In-Depth on Hexagon

For a more in-depth news analysis and commentary on this announcement, see “Hexagon Now Has End-to-End AEC Solutions Platform with Acquisition of Bricsys.”