AQUISITION | Bentley Systems acquires 3D geospatial company

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the infrastructure engineering software company, today announced it has acquired 3D geospatial company Cesium. Cesium is recognized as the foundational open platform for creating powerful 3D geospatial applications, and its 3D Tiles open standard has been widely adopted by leading enterprises, governments, and tens of thousands of application developers globally. Cesium ion, the company’s SaaS platform, brings 3D geospatial experiences to more than 1 million active devices every month, while Cesium’s open-source offerings have more than 10 million downloads.

Bentley’s iTwin Platform powers digital twin solutions that are used by engineering and construction firms and owner-operators to design, build, and operate the world’s infrastructure. The combination of Cesium plus iTwin enables developers to seamlessly align 3D geospatial data with engineering, subsurface, IoT, reality, and enterprise data to create digital twins with astonishing user experiences that scale from vast infrastructure networks to the millimeter-accurate details of individual assets—viewed from land, sky, and sea, from outer space to deep below the Earth’s surface.

“A 3D geospatial view is the most intuitive way for owner-operators and engineering services providers to search for, query, and visualize information about infrastructure networks and assets,” said Nicholas Cumins, Bentley chief executive. “With the combined capabilities of Cesium and iTwin, infrastructure professionals can make better informed decisions in full 3D geospatial context—all within a single, highly performant environment.”

“Joining Bentley marks an important milestone for Cesium as we continue our journey to create the best developer platform for the built and natural environment—founded on open standards and open-source technologies,” said Patrick Cozzi, chied executive of Cesium. “The combined power of our two organizations and our shared commitment to openness will provide new opportunities for growth and create greater value for an already flourishing developer ecosystem that ranges from small start-ups to global enterprises.”

An example is Komatsu, the largest construction equipment manufacturer in Japan, and the second largest in the world, which uses Cesium’s 3D geospatial technology to monitor construction sites globally, track changes over time, compare architectural plans with real-world data, and run precise and near real-time measurements. With Cesium integrated into Bentley, Komatsu gains expanded access to world-leading digital twin technology.

“Komatsu and Cesium brought novel thinking to the construction industry by leveraging advanced visualizations to deliver more precise insights and enable our customers to make better, more informed construction decisions,” said Chikashi Shike, executive officer, Smart Construction Promotion Division, Komatsu Ltd. “With Cesium as part of Bentley, we can further enrich our Smart Construction digital twins with engineering models, subsurface data, and more, for safer and more efficient construction projects.”

In addition to the widespread adoption of its platform, Cesium is also a leader in promoting open standards, such as 3D Tiles for visualizing massive 3D geospatial data, which was adopted as a community standard by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) in 2019.

“As infrastructure sectors become more data-centric, the importance of an open ecosystem will only increase,” said Peter Rabley, chief execuitive of OGC. “As the leading voice for open standards and interoperability in the geospatial community, OGC welcomes the ongoing commitment of Bentley and Cesium to solve global challenges through open, interoperable platforms.”

With the acquisition, Cozzi was named Bentley’s chief platform officer, leading the development of the combined Cesium and iTwin platform offerings, reporting to Bentley’s CTO Julien Moutte.

The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Dechert LLP acted as legal advisor to Bentley in the transaction.

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