Infrastructure Focus

Founded in 1986, HCSS is a leading provider of software for the infrastructure and heavy civil sectors of the North American construction market. The company supports more than 4,000 construction companies with a total employee headcount of 550 professionals.

Key Takaways

• HCSS acquisition strengthens the Nemetschek Group’s position in valuable North American infrastructure construction market and aligns well with other Build & Construct segment brands plus Allplan
• HCSS generates well over USD 200 million in revenue, marking a new substantial revenue generator for the Group
• Thoma Bravo partnership means Nemetschek SE shares exchange hands but helps Group maintain a flexible balance sheet and sharp posture for future M&A deals

As part of the terms of the agreement, HCSS will become part of the Nemetschek Group’s Build & Construct segment, aligning with industry-leading brands like Bluebeam and GoCanvas, two brands with very strong North American market share. Nemetschek states that the Build & Construct segment and HCSS have comparable and unique growth and profitability profiles. In 2025, HCSS generated plus or minus USD 215 million in revenue, an ARR growth of ± 21%, and an EBITDA margin of ± 40%.

The Nemetschek Group is set to acquire US-based Heavy Construction Systems Specialists, LLC (“HCSS”). The Texas-headquartered company is a major software provider for infrastructure and heavy-civil construction companies.

These financials are not just strong but align with the Group’s Build & Construct segment’s historical performance. More critically, the Group says that HCSS enables the Group to expand into the heavy civil construction sectors where structural growth drivers include aging assets, large-scale government investments (eg, Biden era Infrastructure Bill), ongoing energy transition in the age of AI and datacenter expansion, as well as continued urbanization. This will strengthen Nemetschek’s position in the total market opportunity estimated at USD 12 billion by 2028.

Thoma Bravo Partnership

In an effort to preserve the Nemetschek Group’s balance sheet flexibility, the transaction is tailored such that Thoma Bravo will receive shares in the Nemetschek Group’s Build & Construct segment.

Nemetschek SE will hold approximately 72% of the shares in the Build & Construct segment, and Thoma Bravo will hold approximately 28% as a minority shareholder. As part of the terms, the Group will refinance all existing HCSS financial debt and liabilities, resulting in an impact of approximately EUR 450 million on the Nemetschek Group net debt position.

While this arrangement sounds as if the Build & Construct segment could be spun out of the Group, Nemetschek SE says that the Build & Construct segment will continue to function as an integral part of the Group.

Maintaining balance sheet flexibility enables the Group to support future growth ambitions through targeted M&A. The transaction has no impact on the shareholder structure of Nemetschek SE.

Yves Padrines, CEO of the Nemetschek Group stated:

“This acquisition significantly expands our size and our total market opportunity, deepens our footprint in North America, and perfectly complements our existing portfolio of leading solutions in the Build & Construct segment”, continues Padrines. “It will give us an even greater ability to innovate and expand our reach using our strong AI innovation abilities. We welcome Thoma Bravo as a partner and minority shareholder in the Build & Construct segment. We look forward to working with them and the HCSS team to unlock new growth opportunities in our Build & Construct segment and deliver even greater value to our customers and shareholders.” 

“The Nemetschek Group has built one of the world’s most incredible customer- and product-centric company cultures,” said A.J. Rohde, a Senior Partner at Thoma Bravo. “The opportunity to merge HCSS with Nemetschek’s leading Build & Construct segment is a truly defining moment and we look forward to supporting the growth of the combined business. We have barely scratched the surface on the scale and speed of innovation that we can provide to customers of both companies, and we will work tirelessly together to fulfill the potential that the market deserves.”

“HCSS is a perfect fit for our Build & Construct segment,” said Usman Shuja, Chief Division Officer of the Nemetschek Group’s Build & Construct Segment. “Together, we can offer a best-in-class, end-to-end portfolio that enables customers to manage complex building and infrastructure projects with greater efficiency and confidence. By combining our complementary strengths, we will expand our global reach, accelerate AI-based innovation, and continue to deliver the trusted solutions our customers rely on in their daily work.”

The acquisition is expected to close in H2 2026 and is subject to regulatory approvals and closing conditions. J.P. Morgan is serving as exclusive financial advisor, Latham & Watkins and Hoffmann & de Vries are serving legal advisors to the Nemetschek Group.

To learn more visit here. 

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glTF 2.0

Khronos has announced an official glTF release candidate that enables storing 3D Gaussian splats in glTF 2.0. The release candidate allows for broad industry feedback prior to an official ratification of the standard to make sure it truly meets the needs of the industry broadly.

3D Gaussian splat tileset of a chemical refinery embedded with Celsium World Terrain in CesiumJS. (Data and image from Bentley Systems).

Gaussian splats support via glTF happens via the KHR_gaussian_splatting baseline extension. Splats are an important new geometry and visualization technology in 3D industries like AEC and infrastructure, among others. They support real-time graphics, digital twins, and large-scale geospatial visualization.

Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group, says:

Gaussian splatting is a radiance field representation technique that converts multiple 2D images into realistic 3D assets. Applications supporting this format use a collection of photos and videos to create a type of 3D point cloud data of an object or scene–more commonly a scene in the AEC and infrastructure industries. Cesium is one of the bigger exciting visualization platforms with Gaussian splat support.

MORE: D5 Render and Cesium Integration Unlocks City-Scale Storytelling

Gaussian splats are extremely useful for infrastructure, as seen in the Bentley-supplied image above of a chemical plant. Geospatial and similar AEC industry workflows are all well-suited, including:

• City-scale and corridor-scale reality capture
• Complex natural environments with vegetation and irregular geometry
• Reflective, translucent, or detail-rich urban surfaces
• Rapid field acquisition using commodity cameras, drones, or mobile devices

Gaussian spattting has also been adopted by other industries not yet mentioned in this article, including photojournalism, media and entertainment (M&E), robotics training, cultural preservation, and is well-positioned to bring 3D reality capture to social media. Despite this, generation, training, rendering, and compression techniques continue to evolve and advance.

Industry Need for Standardization

A need for standardization is important to prevent fragmentation in this critical new technology. The Khronos Group has been the steward of dozens of key industry standards in CAD and 3D technologies over the decades. The Khronos 3D Formats Working Group is focused on this development with Gaussian Splats resulting in the KHR_gaussian_splatting glTF extension.

KHR_gaussian_splatting extends the glTF 2.0 mesh primitive to represent 3D Gaussian splat datasets, including:

• Position, orientation, and scale
• Color and opacity attributes
• Interpretation rules for rendering spats rather than triangles.

With the extension, compatible renderers interpret primitives as Gaussian splat datasets. This eases the new standard and technology into existing tooling pipelines. To learn more, visit here for all the details.

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Revizto for Infrastructure

This new purpose-built solution brings Revizto’s powerful BIM technology to the civil infrastructure markets and introduces a new feature called Linear Navigation, a breakthrough capability that allows teams to coordinate seamlessly across miles of terrain. When projects run for miles, even small misalignments can trigger major rework and costly delays.

Revizto for Infrastructure features innovative new Linear Navigation feature.

“Revizto for Infrastructure is the next step in our mission to simplify complexity across the AECO industry,” said Arman Gukasyan, Founder and CEO of Revizto. “By combining everything teams already trust in Revizto with new tools made specifically for large-scale, linear projects, we’re giving them the ability to plan, build, and maintain critical assets efficiently. These initiatives are more than just construction – they’re driving economic growth and serving communities. This move is transformative for infrastructure delivery and extends our success helping global clients bring their most ambitious projects to life.”

Revizto for Infrastructure enables all the same unique visual 2D/3D benefits as Revizto itself, including 2D overlay of 3D model views and side-by-side 2D-3D windows like this one here.

Governments globally are investing billions into new infrastructure projects from modernizing transportation networks to new energy networks supporting burgeoning electricity demand. To help address the nees of the large linear infrastructure market, this new product delivers tools specifically aimed at that, including:

• Linear Navigation — pinpoint any location no matter the scale and resolve issues quickly
• Unified 2D/3D environment — Dual mode 2D  and 3D side-by-side window features typical of Revizto’s unique UI
• Revizto Collaboration Hub — provides every stakeholder with real-time insight to make informed decisions
• Local Preview — securely and privately view WIP Revit models for quick clash checks
• 2D Overlay — overlay 2D drawings and point clouds on 3D models to verify alignment, catch inconsistencies and improve design accuracy
• AR & VR mode — overlay models onto real-world job sites and conduct virtual walks
• Collaborative Clash Detection — Full clash detection, clearance issues and missing and duplicate elements checking

“Revizto’s Linear Navigation is to be game-changing,” says Jasen Cronje, Onsite Technology Lead at KiwiRail. “Instead of spending hours manually creating viewports across kilometers of track, we’ll be able to explore sections instantly. With driver views and signal sighting, we’ll gain accuracy and efficiency like never before.”

Check at the video below and learn more here.

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Keith Bentley

Bentley Systems founder Keith Bentley will step down as Chief Technology Officer in April 2023. After that, he will assume the role of Technology Advisor through to his anticipated retirement later in the year.

Keith Bentley, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Bentley Systems. (Image: Bentley Systems.)

After that, he will continue serving on Bentley Systems’ Board of Directors. His successor as Chief Technology Officer will be Julien Moutte, the current Vice President of Technology. Keith Bentley’s younger brother and Bentley Systems’ CEO, Greg Bentley explained:

Julian Moutte

Newly announced CTO Julien Moutte initially joined Bentley Systems as Vice President of Technology in January 2021. Previously Moutte had been head of technology for SAP Marketing Cloud. Julien’s technical expertise ranges from cloud operations and high-availability platforms to multimedia and mobile.

Julien Moutte, Vice President of Technology, Bentley Systems. (Image: Bentley Systems.)

Moutte is an IT entrepreneur and investor. During the past fifteen years, he has launched more than ten companies in Europe and the United States.

Based in Barcelona, Moutte is fluent in English, French, and Spanish. He graduated in computer science in 1998 at Université Claude Bernard in Lyon, France. Moutte worked in startup ventures, and at SAP, with Bentley Systems’ Chief Operating Officer Nicholas Cumins, to whom he reports.

Julien Moutte said, “Working with a visionary CTO like Keith Bentley is a rare privilege and a humbling experience, which I have enjoyed greatly for the past two years. Our iTwin Platform is uniquely positioned to help us and our users advance infrastructure for a world in dire need.”

David Hollister

David Hollister served as Bentley Systems’ CFO between 2007 and 2022. Hollister’s replacement will be Werner Andre. Greg Bentley told us, “David Hollister has zealously and adroitly stewarded our financial, portfolio development, and investment activities, and our IPO in 2020 would not have been possible without his drive and orchestration. I am further grateful to David for having nurtured such a capable CFO successor, Werner Andre, who has performed admirably over the past year.”

David Hollister, Chief Investment Officer, Bentley Systems. (Image: Bentley Systems.)

Additionally, Keith Bentley and David Hollister participated in Bentley Systems’ Q4 2022 quarterly operating results presentation on 28 February 2023. A recording of the event is available on the Events & Presentations page on Bentley Systems’ Investor Relations website. Please click here.

About Bentley Systems

Headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, USA, Bentley Systems Incorporated is a software company. It develops, manufactures, licenses, sells, and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure. Moreover, its software is used for the design, construction, and operations of roads and bridges, rail and transit, water and wastewater, public works and utilities, buildings and campuses, mining, and industrial facilities. Its product range includes:-

• AssetWise for asset and network performance.
• iTwin Platform for infrastructure digital twins.
• MicroStation-based applications for modeling and simulation.
• ProjectWise for project delivery.
• Seequent’s leading geo professional software portfolio.
• SYNCHRO for construction management

At the same time, Bentley Systems generates annual revenue of approximately USD 1 billion in 194 countries. Currently, it employs more than 5,000 people. For more information about Bentley Systems, please click here.

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EasyPower intuitive interface

EasyPower is a leading developer of design and analysis software tools, including arcing flash solutions, aimed at electrical engineering professionals.

Screengrab showing EasyPower in action. (Image: EasyPower.)

Since its foundation in 1984, EasyPower has combined graphics-based modeling with sophisticated analysis. This makes solving complex electrical engineering problems more straightforward and accessible.

Its intuitive interface allows engineers to digitize complex electrical systems. Moreover, it enables the design, analysis, and optimization of intricate but robust electrical power distribution systems.

Monitoring power distribution

The main purpose of EasyPower products is primarily designing, analyzing, and monitoring power distribution systems. It serves industrial and commercial facilities, to ensure safety, reliability, and regulatory compliance. Bentley Systems’ CEO Greg Bentley explains:

Bentley’s acquisition of EasyPower initially adds a further 45 experts to its headcount in North America. It also extends integrated and iterative power systems design and analysis for Bentley’s infrastructure and digital twin technologies. Furthermore, the acquisition of EasyPower broadens Bentley Systems’ comprehensiveness in infrastructure engineering.

Electrified future

Because of an increasingly electrified future, all AEC/O infrastructure assets will benefit from EasyPower integration. It will encompass disparate and widely distributed energy resources on both sides of “the meter.” Benefits will include cost-effectiveness, performance, resilience, and safety. Similarly, it will enable continued simulation and assessment of power distribution conditions and designs over entire construction and operating life cycles.

Therefore, priorities for Bentley Systems will include integrating EasyPower’s schema with Bentley’s own product range and digital workflows.  Accordingly, it will integrate with Bentley’s OpenBuildings, OpenFlows, OpenPlant, OpenRail, and Bentley Raceway and Cable Management applications.

Further to Greg Bentley’s comments, EasyPower CEO Kevin Bates tells us, “We are delighted to be joining Bentley Systems at this point of inflection for electrical power in infrastructure and in infrastructure digital twins. For nearly 40 years, EasyPower has been simplifying complex electrical engineering problems and helping our customers to confidently complete the job at hand. Our purpose has been to make electricity more accessible, more reliable, and safer to use. Within and for Bentley Systems, we can now substantially scale up EasyPower’s reach – across the world, across infrastructure sectors, and across digital twin lifecycles!”

About Bentley Systems

Headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, USA, Bentley Systems Incorporated is a software company. Bentley’s product range includes:-

• AssetWise for asset and network performance.
• EasyPower for monitoring power distribution.
• iTwin Platform for infrastructure digital twins.
• MicroStation-based applications for modeling and simulation.
• ProjectWise for project delivery.
• Seequent’s leading geo professional software portfolio.
• SYNCHRO for construction management

For more information about Bentley Systems, please click here. To learn more about Easypower, please click here.

Bentley, the Bentley logo, AssetWise, iTwin, MicroStation, ProjectWise, and Seequent are all trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems Incorporated or one of its subsidiaries. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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Brock Ballard, Chief Revenue Officer

Brock Ballard, Chief Revenue Officer, is the first of the two new executive appointments. Before joining Bentley Systems in 2020, Ballard served in sales leadership positions with Dassault Systèmes, Autodesk, and Océ. Prior to that, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Information Sciences from the University of Alabama in 2001.

New executive appointments: Brock Ballard as Chief Revenue Officer.

Ballard was previously Bentley Systems’ Vice President and Regional Executive, Americas. He succeeds newly-retired Gus Bergsma, who became part of the company when Bentley Systems acquired RAM International, back in 2005. Ballard reports to Bentley’s Chief Operating Officer, Nicholas Cumins, who explains:-

Eric Boyer, Investor Relations Officer

The second of the two new executive appointments is investments expert Eric Boyer as its Investor Relations Officer. Chief Executive Officer Greg Bentley said, “We now welcome Eric Boyer as our inaugural Investor Relations Officer, reporting directly to me. Eric combines a wealth of experience and strategic acumen to help us create a world-class investor relations function. I look forward to working very closely with Eric to extend and improve our outreach and communications with the investment community globally.”

New executive appointments: Eric Boyer as Investor Relations Officer.

Boyer brings over 20 years of experience in investor relations and equity research. He also has a deep knowledge of capital markets and a strong network of relationships. As Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at IHS Markit Ltd., its market capitalization increased from USD 8 billion to USD 44 billion. He was also consistently recognized by Institutional Investor magazine as a leading IR (investor relations) professional.

Prior to Boyer’s investor relations career, he spent more than a decade as a sell-side equity analyst at Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank. He covered various technology and related services sectors. The Wall Street Journal’s “Best on the Street” survey recognized him for his stock selections. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Logistics and International Business from Penn State University in 1999.

About Bentley Systems

Headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, USA, Bentley Systems Incorporated is a software company. It develops, manufactures, licenses, sells, and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure. Its software is used for the design, construction, and operations of roads and bridges, rail and transit, water and wastewater, public works and utilities, buildings and campuses, mining, and industrial facilities. Its product range includes:-

• AssetWise for asset and network performance.
• iTwin Platform for infrastructure digital twins.
• MicroStation-based applications for modeling and simulation.
• ProjectWise for project delivery.
• Seequent’s leading geo professional software portfolio.

Bentley Systems generates annual revenue of approximately USD 1 billion in 186 countries and employs more than 4,500 people. For more information about Bentley Systems, please click here.

Bentley, the Bentley logo, AssetWise, iTwin, MicroStation, ProjectWise, and Seequent are all trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems Incorporated or one of its subsidiaries. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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SYNCHRO Updates

SYNCHRO 4D now offers advanced 4D and 5D model authoring with leading-edge model-splitting tools to create constructible components, assignment of construction attributes to the model, mixed reality modeling, construction geometry placement, and web and mobile access for team collaboration. Additionally, these new capabilities boost status updates and progress reporting in the field as well.

The newly added enhancements include the addition of SYNCHRO Cost and SYNCHRO Perform applications.

Virtual construction, planning, and model-based workflows from the field to the office. SYNCHRO supports the entire heavy civil construction project lifecycle with real-time insight into the performance, productivity, and financial health of AEC projects.

Bentley’s 4D/5D construction software helps The Lane Construction Corporation have access to all our project-level data. Our field and corporate managers, along with the executives who lead them, now have timely access to critical business information through SYNCHRO,” said Andy Kaiyala, former vice president of bid development, The Lane Construction Corporation. “It is access to this information that helps improve forward-looking decision-making. Our industry has been far too reliant on backward-looking reports and analysis. It is time to start looking ahead and planning for success. SYNCHRO helps us make a plan that we can rely on.”

SYNCHRO Cost

SYNCHRO Cost helps construction teams control costs and stay on budget with detailed financial tracking and change order management. This minimizes financial risks and maximizes project profits.

It works with SYNCHRO 4D’s model-based quantity take-off, which includes model splitting to generate constructible components complete with work breakdown structure and cost codes so that estimators can quickly and accurately generate estimates. Moreover, SYNCHRO Cost can control contract changes and simplify payment applications, tracking line items and percentages complete against a schedule of values.

SYNCHRO helps construction firms manage construction contracts, budgets, and change orders.

SYNCHRO Cost leverages the performance data in SYNCHRO Perform so project teams can manage and leverage field performance data to gain an accurate picture of actual costs from the field to compare to planned costs and schedule, delivering a complete view of the project’s performance. These digital workflows better connect the office and job site with real-time information. Supplementing contracts and change orders with evidentiary documents and images can prove invaluable in avoiding contract disputes.

SYNCHRO Perform

SYNCHRO Perform enables construction performance management, including the ability to capture daily progress quantities, diaries, unplanned events, timesheets, tickets, and estimated field costs to provide the shortest cycle time for project feedback and productivity insights.

SYNCHRO Perform features help construction firms manage construction projects on the basis of resources, progress and financial performance with an intelligence dashboard.

With daily, clear line-of-sight into the management of all site resources from staff, sub-contractors, and equipment, SYNCHRO Perform fills the gaps between end-of-month financial reporting cycles. And, with project leadership potentially at a disadvantage when it comes to decision-making due to delays in progress capture and errors in data entry, SYNCHRO Perform provides a timely source of truth for all performance management data and metrics, so that project leadership knows the health of every project. Construction-specific features capture daily progress quantities, diaries, unplanned events, timesheets, tickets, and estimated costs from field personnel, providing leadership with the timely data they need to make informed decisions.

4D and 5D for Construction

Top construction firms use 4D models to build and optimize schedules and plan and communicate sequencing and staging of critical environments all done in a virtual environment without touching the actual construction site. These digital rehearsals are key to the planning process to ensure resources are optimized, reducing rework and increasing safety on the job site.

The latest updates in the software extend the value of the 4D model to more project stakeholders. Such stakeholders can communicate and collaborate more clearly on real-time and model-field-collected data to ensure that projects stay on track.

“Construction teams need to ensure that they are in control of both the schedule and costs of their projects,” said Rich Humphrey, vice president of construction at Bentley Systems. “The addition of SYNCHRO Cost and SYNCHRO Perform extends SYNCHRO’s industry-leading 4D scheduling and project management solutions to include more capabilities to help contractors manage their costs and effectively connect the planning and tracking of costs and schedule. Time is money, and we want project teams to save more of both with SYNCHRO.”

To learn more, visit here. https://www.bentley.com/software/construction/

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The new products and abilities make big strides in extending the scope and interoperability of infrastructure data that engineering firms and owner-operators can use to create and leverage digital twins in design, construction, and operations workflows.

Bentley Infrastructure Cloud

The new iTwin Platform capabilities power the Bentley Infrastructure Cloud and comprise a set of branded solutions familiar to most Bentley customers and the larger AEC/O industry. These solutions span the end-to-end infrastructure lifecycle and value chain, encompassing ProjectWise, AssetWise, and SYNCHRO, and are made unified and interoperable by Bentley’s infrastructure schemas.

iTwin Experiences

iTwin Experiences is a new cloud product designed to gain insights into critical infrastructure by visualizing and navigating digital twins. This will benefit all infrastructure stakeholders, from operators, owners, and engineering constituents.

An image showing Bentley iTwin Experience reviewing data on highway bridge structure.

iTwins Experiences helps accelerate engineering firms and their “digital integrator” initiatives to create and curate asset-specific digital twins, embedding and leveraging proprietary machine learning (ML), analytics, and asset performance algorithms.

iTwin Experiences acts like a “single pane of glass” that overlays engineering technology (ET), operations technology (OT), and information technology (IT) to help users to visualize queries and analyze infrastructure digital twins in their full context and at any level of granularity, scale, all fully geo-coordinated and searchable.

Other iTwin Products

iTwin Capture and iTwin IoT are two additional iTwin family products.

iTwin Capture is used to capture, analyze and share reality data—data captured from photographic imagery, laser scanners, and mobile mapping devices of existing built assets in the physical environment. This data is used to create engineering-ready, high-resolution 3D models of infrastructure assets.

An image of iTwin Capture in action.

Infrastructure digital twins can begin with such reality-captured data rather than requiring BIM models of existing assets. iTwin Capture offers the highest-fidelity and most versatile means of capturing reality to serve as the digital context for surveying, design, monitoring, and inspection functions.

iTwin IoT is used for acquiring and analyzing sensor data and seamlessly incorporates Internet of Things (IoT) data.

Infrastructure IoT can be used effectively for real-time safety and risk monitoring in operations and construction activities, including measuring and visualizing environmental changes, structural movement, or deterioration for condition assessment, maintenance schedules, and to prompt precautionary interventions. By securely incorporating real-time data at scale from among hundreds of sensor types, iTwin IoT increases the value of engineering and geotechnical data.

Year In Infrastructure Awards and iTwins

In the 2022 Going Digital Awards, the proportion of finalists crediting iTwins technology reached 42 percent this year. Bentley presented a broadening of its strategic advantages for iTwin.

An image of iTwin IoT in action on transportation infrastructure.

Keith Bentley said, “It is clear to me that infrastructure digital twins are the future of our industry and our company. Our digital twin journey began four years ago with a series of open-source projects to create cloud-native tools called iTwin.js. It has evolved into the iTwin Experience, which is the workhorse for digital twin solutions from Bentley and others.

I’m very proud of the tremendous progress our users, and we have made using the iTwin Platform, as evidenced in the current YII submissions. Phase 2 of our journey involves improving our existing desktop products using the same iTwin engine. Users of our MicroStation and engineering design and analysis applications will next gain new features that can make their projects more efficient, more connected, and the results more valuable. We can do that by augmenting, not replacing, their existing tools, workflows, file formats, and deliverables. The iTwin engine will run on the same desktop ‘in process’ with the design applications, synchronizing a local iModel and connecting to cloud services when and as necessary.”

Availability

iTwin Experience is in early access; iTwin Capture and iTwin IoT are available now. iTwin Experience incorporates capabilities from OpenCities Planner. iTwin Capture incorporates capabilities from ContextCapture and Orbit 3DM. iTwin IoT incorporates capabilities from the sensemetrics platform and Vista Data Vision. To find out more, visit www.bentley.com. 

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BSY—Q3 Financial Results

Following a successful 2022 second quarter, Bentley Systems published its 2022 third quarter financial results on 8 November 2022. In a strong third quarter for Bentley Systems, its income and profits are up. In fact, the bottom line for all three quarters of the year looks good. Year-on-year profits are up too.

The strong third quarter for Bentley Systems. CEO, Greg Bentley.

Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley explains his company’s success:

Third quarter financial highlights

• Operating income up.
• Net income up.
• Net income margin up.
• Adjusted net income up by just under USD 5 million.
• Adjusted Net Income per diluted share went up a little over 10%.
• Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization ) increased by almost USD 6 million.
• Cash flow from operations up by a little over USD 11 million.

Third quarter in detail

Bentley’s operating income was USD 55.5 million, compared to an operating loss of USD 37.5 million for the same period last year. Bentley’s 2021 third-quarter operating loss was due to a one-time compensation charge of USD 90.7 million. This resulted from a modification of its deferred compensation plan.

Net income was USD 37.0 million, compared to a net loss of USD 48.0 million for the same period last year. Net income per diluted share was significantly improved: USD 0.12, compared to GAAP net loss per diluted share of USD 0.16 for the same period last year.

The net loss back in the third quarter of 2021 was due to a one-time compensation charge of USD 83.4 million, net of tax, resulting from a modification of its ‘deferred compensation plan.’

Net income margin was 13.8%, compared to the net loss margin of 19.1% for the same period last year. Adjusted Net Income was USD 61.8 million, compared to USD 56.3 million for the same period last year. Net Income per diluted share went up too: USD 0.19 compared to USD 0.17 for the same period last year.

Adjusted EBITDA increased: USD 89.7 million, compared to USD 84.5 million for the same period last year. Though adjusted EBITDA margin was very slightly lower: 33.4%, compared to 33.6% for the same period last year. Cash flow from operations was higher: USD 69.5 million, compared to USD 58.4 million for the same period last year.

Nine months ended 30 September 2022

Overall, the year to the end of September was pretty good for Bentley too.

• Total revenues were USD 812.1 million. Subscription revenues were USD 708.7 million, up 20.2% or 26.6% on a constant currency basis, year-over-year. Operating income was USD 167.9 million, compared to USD 51.3 million for the same period last year. The nine months ended 30 September 2021, its operating income includes a one-time compensation charge of USD 90.7 million resulting from a modification of our deferred compensation plan.
• Net income was USD 149.1 million, compared to USD 54.6 million for the same period last year. GAAP net income per diluted share was USD 0.46, compared to USD 0.17 for the same period last year. The nine months ended September 30, 2021 GAAP net income includes a one-time compensation charge of USD 83.4 million, net of tax, resulting from a modification of our deferred compensation plan. GAAP net income margin was 18.4%, compared to 7.8% for the same period last year;
• Adjusted net income was USD 215.2 million, compared to USD 195.0 million for the same period last year. Adjusted Net Income per diluted share was USD 0.66 compared to USD 0.62 for the same period last year.
• Cash flow from operations was USD 238.2 million, compared to USD 207.4 million for the same period last year.

Year-on-year

Bentley’s Chief Financial Officer, Werner Andre, tells us, “As the net favorable directions of business performance that Greg enumerated are serving to offset losses from Russia, we continue to reaffirm the range of our 2022 full-year annual financial outlook in constant currency metrics. This includes total revenues growth of 16.9% to 20.1% in constant currency, as well as constant currency ARR growth rate of 14% to 16%.”

Bentley’s total year-on-year revenues were up 6.7% to USD 268.3 million. That is a 14.7% increase when calculated on a constant currency basis. Meanwhile, its subscription revenues were USD 235.3 million. This represents a year-on-year increase of 9.4% or 17.6% on a constant currency basis. Its last twelve-month recurring revenues were USD 950.4 million, up 20.3% year-over-year.

About the number crunching

All the above figures were calculated using GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles).

The term ‘constant currency’ refers to a fixed exchange rate that eliminates fluctuations when calculating relative financial performance figures. Global companies such as Bentley systems have significant operations in several different countries. Such companies often represent their earnings in ‘constant currency’ terms because floating exchange rates can often mask a company’s true performance.

The full official Bentley Systems third quarter report can be downloaded as a PDF from here.

About Bentley Systems

Headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, USA, Bentley Systems Incorporated is a software company. It develops, manufactures, licenses sells and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure. Its software is used for the design, construction, and operations of roads and bridges, rail and transit, water and wastewater, public works and utilities, buildings and campuses, mining, and industrial facilities.

Its software includes MicroStation-based applications for modeling and simulation, ProjectWise for project delivery, AssetWise for asset and network performance, Seequent’s leading geoprofessional software portfolio, and the iTwin platform for infrastructure digital twins. Bentley Systems employs more than 4,500 people worldwide. It generates annual revenues of approximately $1 billion in 186 countries. To learn more, please click here.

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Making the announcement from its New York headquarters on 24 October 2022, Nearabl Inc. met the standard needed to acquire its ‘Powered by iTwin’ designation. Nearabl now becomes an official iTwin Premier Partner.

Nearabl adopts Bentley iTwin – screen captures.

It joins a growing digital twin ecosystem to manage and monitor infrastructure deployments around the world. As Nearabl adopts Bentley iTwin, its partnership with Bentley Systems will extend the use of Nearabl’s technology within the global infrastructure, construction, and design industries.

iTwin power, right from the start

Infrastructure project developers can edit work orders based on iTwin data right from the start. Nearabl, Inc. CEO and Co-founder Arber Ruci explains:

Bentley Systems Director of Business Development, iTwin Platform, Sheena Gaynes, added, “Nearabl is a great example of how BIM (building information modeling) and augmented reality (AR) can be combined and visualized in a mobile app to improve the safety and productivity of construction teams.”

Using Nearabl

Nearabl allows its users to visualize their digital twin on their phones and tablets. This literally puts more power in the hands of project managers and contractors. Consequently, they can make better-informed decisions regarding construction projects. As Nearabl adopts Bentley iTwin, its indoor navigation accuracy and augmented reality visualization lays the groundwork for a built-world immersive internet. This offers the potential for significant innovation in the design, construction, and maintenance of infrastructure around the world.

Pricing

Nearabl starts at USD 300 per month for its ‘Standard Plan.’ The price goes up to USD 3,000 per month for its fully-featured ‘White Plan.’

About Nearabl

Originally created to serve the navigation needs of people with impaired vision, Nearabl is an indoor navigation tool. it enables its users to view accurate digital indoor maps and signage. It also records new paths and points of interest. Easy to use, affordable, and customizable, the company’s technology has been deployed to serve diverse audiences, including construction site managers and digital tourists.

Nearabl’s technology is the work of researchers in advanced robotics, computer vision, and mixed reality. Born out of a university-backed research center, Nearabl has leveraged New York State’s innovation ecosystem to develop its technology continuously.

• to learn more about Nearabl Digital Twins, please click here.

About the Bentley iTwin Platform

The Bentley iTwin platform is an open, scalable cloud platform. It enables development teams to build applications that create, visualize, and analyze digital twins of infrastructure assets. Applications built on the Bentley iTwin platform allow users to incorporate engineering data created by a variety of design tools into a living realistic digital twin. Thus it avoids disruption to real-world tools or processes.

The platform also enables the visualization and tracking of all changes, including changes in real-world conditions. It can acquire these changes from a variety of sources, including drones and IoT (internet of things) sensors. Bentley’s iTwin platform is the basis for applications labeled ‘powered by iTwin’ developed by Bentley and its partners.

• To learn more about the Bentley iTwin Platform, please click here.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Bentley and iTwin are trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, or one of its subsidiaries.

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Partners and USD

Partners including Pixar, Adobe, Autodesk, Siemens, and several other leading companies, along with NVIDIA, will pursue a multi-year roadmap to expand the capabilities of the USD format for industries like architecture, engineering, manufacturing, scientific computing, robotics, and industrial digital twins.

There is even discussion about encoding the IFC schema into USD, exploring the way BIM schemas work for the AEC/O industry. AEC Magazine reported that NVIDIA figures IFC is the most likely path forward for bringing universal interoperability for the BIM industry into the Omniverse platform.

NVIDIA continues to advance the future of the Metaverse with new USD format support, partners and industrial extensions.

At SIGGRAPH, at a special address session, NVIDIA announced its USD plans in more detail, including international character support, which is critical to taking Omniverse to all countries. Geospatial coordinates are also in the works to enable city-scale and planetary-scale digital twins. And real-time streaming of IoT data will further boost the future development of real-time syncing of digital twins to their physical counterparts.

USD Compatibility Testing and Certification Suite

NVIDIA has created a USD Compatibility, and Certification Suite, free to use by developers to test their USD builds and certify they work as planned.

“Beyond media and entertainment, USD will give 3D artists, designers, developers, and others the ability to work collaboratively across diverse workflows and applications as they build virtual worlds,” said Rev Lebaredian, vice president of Omniverse and simulation technology at NVIDIA. “Working with our community of partners, we’re investing in USD so that it can serve as the foundation for architecture, manufacturing, robotics, engineering, and many more domains.”

Open-Source USD Resources

The chip company has also released free resources to help speed up the adoption of USD, including USD assets purpose-built for virtual world-building, plus hundreds of on-demand tutorials, documentation and developer tools.

“USD is a cornerstone of Pixar’s pipeline, and it’s seeing rapidly growing momentum as an open-source framework across not only VFX and animation, but now industrial, design, and scientific applications,” said Steve May, chief technology officer at Pixar Animation Studios. “NVIDIA’s contributions to help evolve USD as the open foundation of fully interoperable 3D platforms will be a great benefit across industries.”

What Partners Are Saying

Autodesk

“Autodesk has been closely involved in the development of USD from its early inception as a means of standardizing the exchange of 3D data in animation and visual effects workflows,” said Raji Arasu, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Autodesk. “We have long understood the importance of 3D interoperability and have already begun extending USD’s applications beyond media and entertainment to design, engineering and industrial applications. We are excited by the momentum behind USD from partners like NVIDIA, which we believe will help better realize the concept of the metaverse and all the workflows it unlocks for our customers.”

Siemens AG

“Siemens and NVIDIA are coming together to enable the industrial metaverse where the future of design, engineering and collaboration will occur,” said Dirk Didascalou, chief technology officer of Siemens Digital Industries. “We are excited to support USD in the Siemens Xcelerator platform and plan to collaborate with NVIDIA on the next generation of the format.”

Volvo

“The promise of USD is immense. At Volvo, we immediately understood the value of the open, extensible, interoperable 3D scene description for our metaverse projects. Being able to maintain assets as a single source of truth and bring them from virtual world to virtual world will be seamless in 3D internet consumer applications,” said Mattias Wikenmalm, senior expert of visualization at Volvo Cars.

Finally, NVIDIA has announced its own investment in building USD plugins for popular 3D software ecosystems to NVIDIA Omniverse. New beta releases for these include PTC Creo, SideFX Houdini, Autodesk Alias, Autodesk Civil3D, and Siemens Xcelerator. And there are more coming.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

While the push from NVIDIA to encode IFC into USD is a big deal, today, there are products available to support the conversion of IFC models to USD. CAD Exchanger makes this possible, for example. Getting IFC into USD is just a baby step in a grander vision. IFC itself seeks to solve many of its own limitations, but the possible marriage with USD is a promising and exciting next development. 

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Event Details

This year Bentley’s YII 2021 conference will consist of two 90 minute keynotes and industry presentations over two days.

Bentley’s annual Year in Infrastructure YII 21 conference is in early December. The event promises major highlights in keynotes and its global awards program to innovative infrastructure projects across the globe, including buildings and campuses.

On the first day, 1 December 2021, the event keynote title is “Building Better Infrastructure.” Bentley’s description reads:

On Day 1, we will focus on how going digital advances the resilience and adaptation of our organizations and infrastructure assets, including by honoring extraordinary examples. We are pleased to announce that Matthias Rebellius, CEO of Siemens Smart Infrastructure and member of the managing board of Siemens AG, and Andrej Avelini, co-founder and President of AEC Advisors LLC, are joining Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems on our virtual YII stage this year.

On the second day, 2 December, the event keynote title is “Building Infrastructure Better.” And the description reads:

On Day 2, we will focus on how going digital advances our projects and skillsets.

Bentley’s Chief Product Officer Nicholas Cumins will conduct a virtual tour of the most innovative digital advancements in infrastructure today. Chief Success Officer Katrina Lord-Levins, as well as industry executives will present on the challenges they’ve overcome in the past year, their stories of going digital, and the innovations driving global projects in infrastructure.

Throughout the event, we will celebrate the digital advancements in infrastructure and sustainability by spotlighting the winners of the 2021 Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure. Learn from these extraordinary projects and see how they are using infrastructure digital twins and pushing the boundaries of sustainable solutions.

Another big event at Bentley’s YII 2021 will be the Year in Infrastructure finalists presentations! These events precede the conference and are available to the press so they can learn about the finalists and speak to them about their projects. Media professionals can learn more here.

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Autodesk and Infrastructure

Autodesk says it acquired Innovyze as part of a larger infrastructure strategy that is aimed at sustainable outcomes. The acquired technologies and solutions enable the technical software design giant to provide end-to-end solutions for design, construction, and now operations of water infrastructure.

This acquisition is smartly aligned with changing political winds for US. investment in critical infrastructure. The Biden Administration current is pushing for a minimum USD 2 trillion infrastructure bill. Water is a critical issue in many US. states like California.

Innovyze Details

Another strategic infrastructure acquisition will help accelerate Autodesk’s digital twin strategy. Innovyze itself gains from Autodesk’s global footprint and the larger company hopes to enhance Innovyze’s footprint and presence across the water infrastructure value chain from design through construction to operations and maintenance.

Built on the Innovyze Info360 platform, Info360 Insight unifies water utility data in the cloud, applying sophisticated analytics, modeling, and alerting tools to make operational information more accessible, reliable, and actionable. (Image: Autodesk)

Info360 Insight is built on the Innovyze Info360 platform and unifies water utility data in the cloud, applying data analytics, modeling, and alerting tools to make operational information more accessible, reliable, and actionable. The company’s solutions are used by around 3,000 customers worldwide, in many of the largest cities in the world on five different continents.

“We make investment decisions based on the potential value to Autodesk and to our customers, and increasingly, we give significant consideration to an investment’s impact on sustainability, as we did with our Spacemaker acquisition last year,” said Andrew Anagnost, CEO and president of Autodesk. “Innovyze is no different. Responsibly managing our use of water runs parallel to successfully sustaining life. This is a software acquisition, but also a clear statement of Autodesk’s corporate commitment to improve our planet.”

To learn more visit this accompanying PDF.

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