BuiltWorlds 3rd annual list of 50 Global Innovators
Welcome to the 3rd annual Global Innovators List. BuiltWorlds recognition of a Global Innovator is a tribute to the industry-advancing role that leading global AECO organizations play in preparing the built environment for the future. The technology that these world-building giants are fully embracing is at the heart of the digital takeoff this sector has been experiencing in recent years.
Legacy construction conglomerates, building tech pioneers, and captains of commercial real estate across the globe are fueling innovative initiatives from the foundation of the industry propelling it toward an inflection point of perpetual growth in technology adoption.
The AECO tech startup ecosystem is brimming with opportunities for investors, entrepreneurs, and adopters as a direct result of the rise of strategic funds in this space. New Corporate Venture Capital initiatives (CVC), accelerator programs, or incubators continue to emerge from among the top engineering, construction, and real estate firms. BuiltWorlds’ 2022 Global Innovators Top list illustrates 50 of the most influential players driving the building space into the future.
CATEGORY:
Global Design & Engineering Innovators
Dassault Systèmes
A pioneer in computer-aided design that was spun off from Dassault Aviation, 3DS has expanded into a diverse range of software categories and industries.
Dassault has over 20,000 employees across 140 countries and generates more than $5 billion in annual revenue. This cutting-edge design enterprise fosters innovation through its 3DExperience Lab, which hosts startup challenges and embraces open innovation in its accelerator program.
Gensler
Gensler is an internationally renowned design & architecture firm with over 6,800 professionals operating in 52 global offices and servicing clients across more than 100 countries. This leading building design firm generated $1.235B in annual revenue in 2021 more than doubling the topline in the past decade.
Gensler is partnering with college campuses across the US to build Academic Incubators to seed the next wave of built-world.
Jacobs
Jacob's 55,000 employees provide a range of technical, professional, and construction services to industrial, commercial, and governmental clients generating $14B in revenue with 70% coming from North America, 23% from Europe, and 7% in APAC.
Jacobs is progressing the built world with 3 distinct startup accelerators: Climate Response, Data Solutions, and Consulting & Advisory.
WSP Global
WSP is a Canadian design business employing over 7,000 professionals providing management and consultancy services to the built and natural environment across 40 countries. WSP generated over $8B in revenue in 2021 and is poised to continue driving forward with its technology-advancing startup initiatives.
Growspark is WSP's accelerator program for the earliest-stage startups building innovative future-ready solutions. WSP curates an ecosystem of leading building technology and industry experts to enable the rapid development of new solutions through innovation and collaboration to solve the biggest problems facing this industry today.
CATEGORY:
Global Building Materials Innovators
ArcelorMittal
The largest steel producer in North America, Europe, and Brazil and 5th largest in the CIS with exposure to high-growth markets such as South America and India (customers across 155 countries, 157,909 employees) capturing more than $75B in revenue in 2021.
ArcelorMittal has 1,500 full-time researchers at 11 geographical sites throughout the world. This materials company is looking towards the future with its XCarb® Innovation fund investing in developing breakthrough technologies that will accelerate the steel industry's transition to carbon-neutral steelmaking.
Cemex
Cemex is a leader in construction materials (specifically cement, concrete, & aggregates) with a presence in over 50 countries. This globally leading concrete giant has 41,000 employees, generating $13B in annual revenue.
Cemex Ventures is the open innovation arm and the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) of CEMEX. Cemex invests in innovative construction startups aiming to foster industry-advancing innovations. Cemex's Accelerator competitions focus on Pre-Seed and Seed stage initiatives at the forefront of next-generation AEC tech.
CRH
CRH plc is an international group of diversified building materials businesses which manufacture and supply a wide range of products for the construction industry.
CRH is the largest building materials company in North America & Europe, generating 41B euros in 2021. This leading material conglomerate is recognized by numerous organizations as a leader in improving the built world's carbon footprint. This sustainability-oriented material innovator is looking to expand its early-stage investment focus with an impending venture arm.
HOLCIM
Holcim builds progress for people and the planet, employing close to 70,000 who operate across 70 countries, with $30B in revenue. As a global leader in innovative and sustainable building solutions, enabling greener cities, smarter infrastructure, and improving living standards around the world.
Holcim is becoming corporate captain in the net-zero materials space and its Accelerator program is looking to optimize the building value chain with sustainability at the core of its strategy.
MBCC Group
MBCC payrolls 7,500 across more than 60 countries, with more than 200 R&D-focused employees across 9 global/regional innovation centers, generating revenue of $3B annually and growing.
MBCC was created at the end of 2020 after the BASF Group carved out its construction-focused segments and sold them to Lone Star, with the goal of furthering innovative efforts. This new future-focused building materials player is heavily investing in internal spinouts with initiatives on concrete admixtures, flooring, waterproofing, grouting, wood preservation, mulch coloring, roof coating, and expansion joint systems.
CATEGORY:
Global Vertical Construction Innovators
Bouygues
Operating on every continent, Bouygues Construction is responsible for large-scale projects in building, civil works, and energy. This global conglomerate employs over 130,000 who service markets in more than 80 countries (followings its acquisition of Equans), generating an annual topline of around $40B.
Bouygues' latest acquisition of Equans (75,000 employees) help create its new sustainability-focused Energy & Services arm which is expected to generate $17+ billion in annual sales.
Each of Bouygues' business segments operates individualized venture investment funds focusing on early-stage innovations raising Seed or Series A funding.
Fluor
Fluor Corporation is the largest public AEC company in Fortune 500: 40,582 employed across 6 continents generating over $14B in annual revenue. Driving towards its 2023 Net Zero commitment, awarded $3.6B in Q2 for mission-critical infrastructure objectives across the world.
The business's incubation platform offers clients & partners Fluor's deep experience in nurturing emerging technologies and accelerating commercialization.
Goldbeck
This family-owned business group works on the philosophy "conceive, construct, care" and therefore counts to the moving spirit in the commercial construction industry. The client receives integral solutions from one source. Goldbeck's global operations produce $5B in annual revenue, with customers in as many as 73 countries, and more than 10,000 employees on the payroll.
Goldbeck not only invests heavily in internal R&D in its efforts to "design the future of construction systematically", but is on of two leading partners in the leading European construction accelerator Futury.
Futury is a platform for sustainable innovation with the goal to connect market leaders, young talent, and start-ups to find new solutions to current sustainability challenges based on UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
HOCHTIEF
HOCHTIEF is an engineering-led global infrastructure group with leading positions across its core activities of construction, services, and concessions/public-private partnerships (PPP) focused on Australia, North America, and Europe. This global construction conglomerate drives $23 billion in annual sales and employs 33,835 across 48 countries.
Established the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB). Hundreds of specialists work in the Group, advising their clients on optimizing and certifying sustainable buildings. HOCHTIEF is an M&A growth machine having fully acquired Flatiron, CPB Contractors, Leighton Asia, and Turner since the turn of the century. Each of these M&A transactions has driven incredibly synergistic growth with a 7-year bottom-line CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of over 13%, a growth metric very few international construction conglomerates can boast of.
TURNER
Turner, HOCHTIEF's US-based subsidiary, has recently teamed up with OMERS Ventures to launch an Entrepreneur-in-Residence program. This built-startup empowering incubator was created to provide ambitious innovators with the proper foundation support to develop industry-advancing initiatives.
Turner Construction Company provides construction services generating $12B from 1,500 projects in 20 different countries each year (employing 10,000). The Company offers pre-construction consulting, design-build, design-build financing, general construction, building maintenance, and procurement services.
Lendlease
Globally integrated real estate and investment group with core expertise in shaping cities. Creating places that leave a positive legacy. Focusing on safety innovation & sustainability. This international construction giant generations an annual topline of more than $10B, with 11,000 employees operating across over 40 countries.
Lendlease recently announced its partnership with UC Berkeley's globally renowned startup accelerator program, SkyDeck, launching its first European hub in Milan.
Obayashi
The Company operates in five segments (domestic construction, overseas construction, real estate development, and green energy) employing 15,470 across 16 countries, with its 86 subsidiaries generating nearly $20B annually.
Obayashi's Silicon Valley Venture Laboratory (SVVL), actively tests new startup technology in its state-of-the-art Bay Area facility, in its highly-active due diligence heavy venture investment approach.
SafeAI, a developer of autonomous solutions for heavy equipment, in partnership with Japanese construction giant Obayashi, has hosted nearly 150 visitors to view its retrofitted autonomous Caterpillar 725, operating on a construction site in Japan for the first time ever.
Prologis
Prologis, Inc. is a multinational logistics real estate investment trust headquartered in San Francisco, with 210 global facilities across 11 countries with its topline growth closing in on $5B per year.
Merger with Duke worth $26B positions the new Prologis as the world's largest logistics real estate company.
Prologis Ventures, launched in 2016, invests in Series A to Growth-Stage innovations in the supply-chain sector, building the future of built-world commerce.
Saint Gobain
Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures, and distributes materials & solutions which are key ingredients in the well-being of each of us and the future of all. They can be found everywhere in our living places and our daily life: in buildings, transportation, infrastructure, and in many industrial applications. The company generates north of $45B in revenue per year, and employs 166,000, with a presence in 76 countries across the globe.
NOVA by Saint Gobain was one of the earliest corporate venture arms in the building ecosystem. Having launched in 2006, NOVA has been involved with the development of more than 150 "transformational innovations".
Skanska
Skanska AB is a Sweden-based construction and project development company. The Company's operations are divided into four operating segments: Construction, Residential Development, Commercial Property Development, and Infrastructure Development.
Skanska is the 5th largest global construction company on Earth with operations in over 50 countries producing yearly topline results of more than $17B.
Skanska has been at the forefront of tech adoption and partnered with the innogy Innovation Hub in 2019 to further develop its ties with early-stage startups in the PropTech and ConTech ecosystems.
STRABAG
This European construction group has over 75,400 employees across more than 80 countries and is recognized as a global leader in terms of both innovation and financial strength generating in excess of $15B annually.
Strabag specializes in the design and engineering of urban infrastructure and commercial vertical building innovation. This global AEC player is heading up efforts to advance the built environment through its Intrapreneurship program which empowers its experienced employee base who have visibility of the problem areas every day, to come up with actionable solutions. This Internal incubator was successfully launched in 2021 and is now developing its second batch of internal startup ideas.
Three of Strabag's inaugural 2021 Intraprenuear innovations received initial funding: bricksta, Heater, teamup.
VINCI
As an investor, builder, and operator of buildings and infrastructure, VINCI plays a key role in the transformation of cities and regions. Drawing on the entrepreneurial energy of our 260,000 employees, its immediate goal of advancing internal construction practices and work ethic will inevitably carry that same built innovation across the planet. This is how VINCI wants to contribute to building a more sustainable world and fully embrace our role as a private-sector partner working in the public interest.
Leonard is VINCI's foresight and innovation platform. Set up to invent and serve the Group's future business activities, Leonard is in charge of tracking emerging trends, identifying long-term challenges and goals, pinpointing opportunities for change in the Group's businesses and organizational structure, identifying new growth drivers and developing innovative project incubation and acceleration programs open to both Group employees and startups.
CATEGORY:
Global Infrastructure & Energy Innovators
Adani Group
This Indian infrastructure conglomerate (comprised of 7 publicly traded companies) operates in over 50 countries generating over $25B in revenue and employs 23,000+ (Gautam Adani, sole owner, is the richest man in Asia).
Adani Enterprise, the organization's incubator program is also a key growth driver for the business, with an incredible average annualized return of 37% since 1994. This innovation-fueling initiative has already been involved with the development of 6 startup initiatives in the past 6 months alone.
AECOM
AECOM is a publicly traded enterprise (NYSE: ACM) and a global provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, and energy. Delivering clean water and energy. Building iconic skyscrapers. Planning new cities. Restoring damaged environments. Connecting people and economies with roads, bridges, tunnels, and transit systems. Designing parks where children play. Helping governments maintain stability and security.
With over 50,000 employees servicing clients in over 150 countries, and a slew of innovation-supporting strategic vision, this building powerhouse is only expected to expand the $13.3B topline results it achieved in 2021.
AECOM hosts a plethora of built-world startup-backing competitions, accelerator programs, and co-innovates, this design/build behemoth is undoubtedly accelerating this industry's digital transformation.
Aramco
Aramco (aka Saudi Aramco) is one of the largest companies on earth with over $350B in annual revenue, ~70,000 employees, and operations in more than 50 countries.
Aramco's savvy management team knows that its fossil-fuel-driven wealth is becoming increasingly transitory every year leading to its sizable $1.5B strategic venture fund focused exclusively on sustainability, in an attempt to hedge its current operations against the accelerating oil & gas phase-out of the future. Aramco Ventures has an additional $500M fund focused on digitizing its own industrial operations, and another $1B Prosperity7 fund focused on disruptive tech outside its own scope of business.
Arup
This globally recognized design & engineering firm employs 16,000 specialists working across >90 disciplines on projects in more than 140 countries and produced over $2B in revenue in 2021 with sustainability at the core of its value proposition.
Arup Ventures, launched in 2001, invests in ideas and organizations that have a transformative impact on the built environment and help us further our goal of shaping a better, more sustainable world.
Balfour Beatty
Is one of the largest international design/build infrastructure innovators with 24,500 employees working across its 3 primary global headquarters in the US, UK, and Hong Kong, providing the firm with a foothold on the global market. BB generates over $10B in topline sales annually (for the past decade).
Balfour Beatty is a leading adopter of the latest digital technology and has outlined its vision for the future in its Innovation 2050 initiative. This recently released business plan cited that it would be "working more closely with startups" which indicates to me that Balfour Beatty's corporate venture fund is looming on the horizon.
BB is currently partnered in a landmark joint venture with VINCI to build out the digitally empowering framework of the future built-world, which includes designing and building part of Europe's most exciting high-speed rail system: HS2.
EMCOR
With revenues of $9.9B in 2021, EMCOR has substantiated itself as a leader in mechanical and electrical construction, industrial & energy infrastructure, as well as building services. The company employs 33,000 servicing 180 global markets.
EMCOR gives life to new structures and sustains life in existing ones by its planning, installing, operating, maintaining, and protecting the sophisticated and dynamic systems that create facility environments in virtually every sector of the economy and for a diverse range of businesses, organizations, and government.
EMCOR has participated in 3 strategic acquisitions to expand its digitally-enabled tech stack since 2021, optimizing its market positioning in the infrastructure space. The company also offers its employees an entrepreneurial leadership program to empower internal innovators.
Larsen & Toubro
L&T is the leading construction & engineering player in India and a prominent international built world player with 50,000 employees operating in over 50 countries, 118 subsidiaries, and 25 JV, generating north of $21B in 2021
L&T’s Technology Hubs are where this global innovator is scouting its future tech investments as these innovation and testing “Centres” provide a nice sample size for this emerging CVC arm to asses. L&T’s Engineering Centres and technology alliances across India carry out process design and simulation, analysis of computational fluid dynamics, mechanical design, failure analysis, and troubleshooting. The tools that L&T provides at its Tech Innovation Centre, & Research & Construction Testing Centre are empowering entrepreneurs and driving innovative built-world solutions in India.
L&T has recently hired a corporate VC to lead its forthcoming corporate venture capital fund (CVC) which looks to be all but a foregone conclusion for this tech-juiced enterprise.
National Grid Group
National Grid Group is a UK-based utility provider that has significantly expanded operations to the East Coast of the US, now servicing 20 million throughout New York and Massachusetts. The company’s Primary operations are in UK & US, but its venture investment span across Europe and into Asia, generating $15B, and employing nearly 24,000 employees.
National Grid Partners (NGP) is the venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid plc. NGP makes and manages strategically and financially attractive investments and leads company-wide innovation efforts. The organization focuses on corporate venture capital, incubation, business development and innovation, providing a multi-functional approach to change the status quo. NGP is based in Silicon Valley with offices and team members in Los Gatos, San Francisco, Boston, London, and New York.
National Grid corporate venture fund has been one of the most active CVCs in recent months, as it works to support its net zero grid goals – ridding the US power grid of carbon emissions.
Schnieder Electric
Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational corporation specializing in electrical equipment that is headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison, France. The company employs 130,000 across 190 countries, producing $30B in annual revenue
SE Ventures (the CVC are of Schnieder Electric) has been active in the built world venture ecosystem, with investment in the economically agnostic sustainability sector with many of these early-stage energy-saving businesses being provided with a longer run tailwind of subsidies, grants, and broader consumer interest.
This utility giant also acquired Aveva for just north of $10B at the end of September. Together, Schneider Electric and AVEVA create a digital transformation solution that combines energy management, automation systems, and services with leading-edge industrial software.
Sinohydro
Sinohydro is a Chinese state-controlled engineering & construction company focused on heavy civil and infrastructure and under the umbrella of its parent organization PowerChina (the largest construction company on the planet, albeit state-owned).
Sinohydro has 486 international projects under construction in more than 72 countries, with a total contract value of nearly $43B.
2021 has been a decisive year for IHA with the first-ever virtual World Hydropower Congress, the launch of a landmark declaration on sustainable hydropower, and the first sustainability standard in the renewables sector.
TechnipFMC
TechnipFMC is a global leader in the energy sector with innovation at the core of its two niche business segments: Subsea and Surface Technologies. These geospatial technologies are providing this challenging industry with solutions for both new and existing energy players.
20K employees generating $13.5B in revenue with HQ based in London but having bases of operation in Africa, the Asian Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas
New Energy Ventures is TechnipFMC’s strategic venture arm which has a natural focus on solving the mounting complexities that this supply chain-disrupted industry is facing today. This CVC positions TechnipFMC as an early adopter of digital transformation and integration. New Energy Ventures' three areas of focus: greenhouse gas removal, offshore floating renewables, and hydrogen.
CATEGORY:
Global Equipment & Machinery Innovators
ABB
ABB is a Zurich-based multinational equipment and automation conglomerate with roots in the built world that go all the way back to the 1800s. Today, this European industry leader operates in 100 countries with 135,000 employees generating roughly $30B in revenue annually.
ABB is highly focused on the future economy with its strategic venture arm, ABB Technology Ventures (ATV), which has invested over $300B in early-stage starts that underpin Industry 4.0 (robotics, industrial IoT, AI/machine learnings, cybersecurity, electric mobility, smart building, and distributed energy.
Bosch
Bosch Energy & Building Technology employs 31,650 across more than 60 countries and generated a topline of over $6B in 2021.
The Bosch Startup Harbour (the German manufacturer's incubator program) has been held in high regard among the European community with the EU itself funding this early-stage initiative. This incubator has 9 distinct categories with sustainability seemingly seeping its way into most of them (arguably all).
Caterpillar
Caterpillar Inc. is an American Fortune 100 corporation that designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, markets and sells machinery, engines, financial products, and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network. It is the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturer.
Cat Ventures and affiliate HOLT Cat Ventures (Caterpillar Dealer) have increasingly robust built-world venture portfolios with an innovation-enabling focus on the earliest stages of innovation.
Ferguson Ventures
Ferguson Ventures is the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) and strategic partnering arm of Ferguson. Ferguson is the largest US distributor of plumbing supplies and PVF (pipe, valves & fittings).
Ferguson Ventures’ vision is to provide innovators focused on the Built World with the resources, industry expertise, and capital necessary to launch transformation in the construction and services industries that will create a better future for Trade Professionals.
Ferguson Ventures invests in early through late stage companies that solve industry challenges, add value to our partners, scale across our customer base and dominate in their space. We will partner with startups, VCs, CVCs, universities and accelerators to enable this vision. Ferguson’s industry leading position, deep expertise, national footprint, and deep customer and vendor relationships will accelerate our partners’ ability to scale.
Hitachi
51 offices in 39 countries and operates 106 factories that manufacture 40,000 different products, generating over $86B in revenue in 2021.
Hitachi Ventures looks for the best solutions to address the world’s technical, social and environmental challenges. We believe that fostering disruptive innovations and collaborating with innovative startups help to contribute to the greater good. This CVC invests in Europe, Israel, and North America.
Together with the Corporate Venturing Office team, this business segment initiate and promote strategic collaborations between our portfolio companies and Hitachi’s business units to achieve mutual growth.
LIEBHERR
German-Swiss multinational equipment manufacturer based in Bulle, Switzerland, with a product focus on heavy civil.
The Liebherr Group is one of the largest construction equipment manufacturers in the world and provides high-quality, user-oriented products and services in a wide range of areas.
Liebherr operates 4 distinct businesses throughout the U.S., providing diversified revenue and services for a broad array of products and technologies across twelve product segments: earthmoving, material handling, mining, mobile and crawler cranes, tower cranes, concrete technology, deep foundation machines, maritime cranes, components, refrigeration and freezing, aerospace and transportation systems, and gear technology and automation systems.
This cutting-edge building equipment provider employs more than 41,000 people in 50 countries, generating $12B in revenue as of 2021.
Liebherr has been involved with developing the built startup community in Europe, as it was been actively involved in the Bosch Startup Harbour (Bosch's incubator program) building out its strategic relationships with the startup ecosystem.
CATEGORY:
Global Commercial Real Estate Innovators
JLL
Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) is a global leader in the commercial real estate sector with more than 77,000 employees servicing clients across 80 countries, and generating nearly $20B in annual revenue. JLL engages in the full gambit of traditional CRE from property management to real estate investment management.
JLL Spark (founded in 2017), JLL’s appropriately-named strategic venture arm, is dedicated to transforming the real estate industry through technology-based innovation, and it's doing so with highly active vigor. JLL Spark provides the nimbleness of a startup backed by JLL’s expertise and resources. Led by experienced Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with successful track records building and investing in tech companies, JLL Spark’s strategic PropTech investments offer JLL the ability to provide innovative products to real estate owners and operators, while providing this end-of-the-building value chain segment with a running start on tech adoption.
Brookfield Partners
Brookfield Asset Management is a leading global alternative asset manager with over US$690 billion of assets under management across real estate, infrastructure, private equity, and credit (including through affiliate Oaktree Capital Management). The 150,000+ employees across more than 30 countries generate $76B in revenue from both vertical/horizontal assets, with $750B+ under management.
The Brookfield venture investment scope is a synergizing combination of PropTech & ConTech, and it utilizes a global network of knowledge derived from the many partnerships established in real estate, infrastructure, renewable power, private equity, and credit ecosystems. Brookfield’s venture investment fund was created to optimize the real estate sector with which this group operates, with its investment scope properly aligning to the upstream value chain digitalization that is slowly but surely becoming an industry-wide survivorship necessity.
Newmark Group
Newmark is a global powerhouse in the commercial real estate advisory space with robust operations across every phase of the property lifecycle: real estate brokerage, leasing, capital markets (including investment sales), global corporate services, industrial and logistics services, landlord representation, multifamily, property management, retail services, tenant representation, valuation and advisory services, real estate management technology systems, workplace, and occupancy strategy, consulting, project management, and lease administration.
This international CRE leader has nearly 6,700 professionals across its 180-building real estate portfolio which spans 28 countries on six continents. Newmark is looking at a market penetrating $3.1B trailing twelve-month topline, with growth still very much on the horizon.
Newmark has been playing with some of its balance sheet cash in the CRE venture investment space as well as broader-based building startup ecosystem since 2018, and now looks primed to formalize a CVC.
Tishman Speyer
Tishman Speyer is a commercial real estate powerhouse that has the knowledge base needed to convert opportunity into value in the highly competitive commercial real estate space. Tishman Speyer’s ostensibly “premier CRE offerings” have a presence in 30 key global markets servicing about 1,800 end customers and generating $1.5B in annual sales, with only 1,200 employees ($1.25M in revenue per employee).
Tishman’s PropTech CVC portfolio scope has blended with some clear-cut construction tech players such as Built Technologies, Kojo, and OpenSpace, as commercial real estate leaders, begin to understand the business optimizing necessity of integrating digital technology across the lifecycle of a building. Everything after conception has traditionally been left to the AEC professional, but Tishman is looking to take automated control of the entire process.
CATEGORY:
Global Built World Technology Innovators
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, and entertainment industries. Running the whole 3D digital visual market from building design to a fully immersive VR experience, this business has since elevated its AEC focus, represented by its timely purchase of PlanGrid in 2018, and its recent launch of the Construction Cloud.
Autodesk is one of the most active CVCs in the ConTech space as of late and every time they show up on a cap table there seems to be a waterfall of follow-on investments. Autodesk is undoubtedly directing innovation in the built environment as entrepreneurs and investors alike look to this industry leader for guidance.
Bentley Systems
Bentley Systems is an American-based software development company that develops, manufactures, licenses, sells, and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure.
Bentley's revenues are just now breaching that $1B annual milestone, with customers in 186 countries, and 4,500+ "colleagues" working at the company.
Bentley iTwin Ventures is a $100 million corporate venture capital fund (CVC) that fosters innovation by co-investing in startups and emerging companies that are strategically relevant to Bentley Systems' objective of advancing infrastructure through going digital (like the LP with Touchdown Ventures). The fund prioritizes Seed through Series B investments in transformational digital twin solutions supporting the design, simulation, construction, or physical infrastructure operations.
Hexagon
Swedish-based industry innovator Hexagon is starting to pick up industrial tech businesses on discount amid this market-wide fire sale valuation period the market is experiencing as rate rip endlessly higher.
Hexagon's Industry 4.0 portfolio has been extended in recent months with the acquisition of Avvir after only its Series A round and may just be a taste of the anemic M&A activity the AEC-startup ecosystem faces in the final months of 2022.
Nemetschek Group
The Nemetschek Group is a leading global software provider for the Architecture, Engs administration of complex commercial properties. The Media and Entertainment segment operates through Maxon Computer and develops three-dimensional (3D) modeling, painting, animation and rendering applications.
With its innovative solutions, the Group is the only company in the world that maps the entire workflow in the lifecycle of a building or infrastructure project – from the architect’s first sketches to construction to managing and operating the building. Nemetschek software is guiding architects, engineers of all stripes, building contractors, developers, general administrators, and building managers into the future of digitalization.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA, the chip-making king whose processors are being increasingly utilized in AI development & training and other high-speed computing operations, is now dipping its toes into the built-world venture ecosystem.
NVIDIA Ventures invested $15M into PassiveLogic, the self-proclaimed first "autonomous world" application, towards the end of September. The innovative potential of the built environment can't even be ignored by arguably the fastest-growing enterprise of the past decade.
Oracle
Oracle is a cloud technology company that provides organizations around the world with computing infrastructure and software to help them innovate, unlock efficiencies and become more effective. They also created the world’s first – and only – autonomous database to help organize and secure our customers’ data.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers higher performance, security, and cost savings. It is designed so businesses can move workloads easily from on-premises systems to the cloud, and between cloud and on-premises and other clouds. Oracle Cloud applications provide business leaders with modern applications that help them innovate, attain sustainable growth, and become more resilient.
The work they do is not only transforming the world of business–it’s helping defend governments, and advance scientific and medical research. From nonprofits to companies of all sizes, millions of people use our tools to streamline supply chains, make HR more human, quickly pivot to a new financial plan, and connect data and people around the world.
Trimble
Trimble is developing technology, software and services that drive the digital transformation of construction with solutions that span the entire AEC industry. Empowering teams across the construction lifecycle, Trimble’s innovative approach improves coordination and collaboration between stakeholders, teams, phases and processes. Trimble’s Connected Construction strategy gives users control of their operations with best-in-class solutions and a common data environment. By automating work and transforming workflows, Trimble is enabling construction professionals to improve productivity, quality, transparency, safety, sustainability and deliver each project with confidence.
BuiltWorlds Global Innovators 50 Qualifications:
- Must be a recognized global leader in the built environment with market-guiding expertise in one or more of the following AECO areas:
- Architecture
- Engineering
- Vertical or Horizontal Construction
- Tools, Equipment, & Machinery
- Building Management & Operations
- Infrastructure & Energy
- Market Guiding Built World Technology
- Involvement in advancing the built world through innovation-driving initiative(s):
- Corporate Venture Fund
- Accelerator Program
- Demo Day Competitions
- Internal incubators
- Innovative Spinouts
- Synergizing M&A Activity
- Presence in at least 10 countries
- Generates annual revenue of >$500M
- Employee count >5,000
Want Your Company To Be Considered?
Fill out the BuiltWorlds Global Innovators Nomination Form for 2023 consideration
Discussion
Be the first to leave a comment.
You must be a member of the BuiltWorlds community to join the discussion.