News of Autodesk's $240 million acquisition of Oslo, Norway-based, Spacemaker.AI offers the latest evidence of the maturation of Europe's Buildings and Infrastructure technology sector and the increasing trend toward international deals, as leading edge technology companies are cropping up far beyond early centers in places like San Francisco, Boston, and London and as the industry's growing tech players push to expand their customer bases, globally. The deal also highlights the growing importance of AI and Machine learning in this phase of technology dealmaking. An emerging leader in the field of AI and generative design tools for early-stage development and design planning, Spacemaker Founder & CEO, Havard Haukeland spoke at our Global Summit in Paris in 2019, and we identified Spacemaker among a list of promising European Startups in our 2019 European Report.
Around the World, Deals Sizes Grow & More Companies Invest Internationally.
Autodesk's acquisition of Spacemaker is certainly not the first international deal in the AEC tech sector. Oracle's $1.2 Billion acquisition of Australia-based Aconex may still be the largest, and Bentley's acquisition of London-base synchro was another illustration of the trend. In the reverse, Nemetchek's acquisitions of Bluebeam is an example of a European firm buying an American firm. What appears to be different now is the pace of larger deals. Over four days, this past October, we covered international investment in the sector, looking at examples of earlier and later stage companies garnering growing international investment, not only in Europe, but also in places like South America, Australia, Israel, and Saudi Arabia/UAE.
Moving from Digitization of Workflows to Automation and Intelligence.
Early in the sector's technology transformation, the focus was on moving companies from Excel spreadsheets and paper forms and blueprints into cloud based, mobile-friendly systems with structured databases and workflows that would reduce labor associated with double-entry, lack of access to data, and the simple pains of printing, scanning, faxing, mailing, filing and otherwise managing paper. In the last several years, the attention has shifted from moving processes online to leveraging Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence to gain faster and better insights from data to make predictions and to automate processes. Spacemaker is one example of this growing breed of solutions, and we can expect to see a lot more from that group in the years to come, especially as older and more established firms look to incorporate those features into their own offerings.
Research and Lists Featuring Emerging Tech in AI and Machine Learning:
Watch Recent Discussion Sessions and Demos Around AI/Machine Learning:
February Training and Development Call – Peyton Spivey’s Presentation
Peyton Spivey’s presentation on “Implementation Blueprint: How to Roll Out a New Construction Management Platform.”
2020 Venture Conference: State of Corporate Strategic Investing With Grant McCullagh, Vivin Hegde, Will Longsworth, and Leonid Astrin
Industry players continue to be among the most active investors in the Built World Sector. In this session, we bring together four leaders in that world of “Corporate Venture Capital” to hear about how they are working to gain direct access to new technologies while driving wider innovation adoption and also to understand from them their perspective on how the role of the CVC investor shifted in the past year and where is it headed?
February Training and Development Call
Selecting software is one thing. Implementing it is another. In this session we will look at case studies of how construction companies successfully approach the implementation of software, particularly in […]
February Venture Call – Jeff Herriman Presentation
Jeff discussed the valuation environment in design, construction, hardware, and ERP solutions. He also touched on recent later stage transactions that have taken place in the past two years, and the upcoming early stage start ups eyeing an exit in the soon to be future.
February Venture Call – Vik Pandit Presentation
Vik discussed the investment themes he is seeing in Construction, the opportunities for software implementation, & the opportunity for M&A due to the fragmented nature of the ecosystem.
February Venture Call – Late Stage & M&A Activity and Trends (Full Recording)
Although investment in AEC technology is still relatively in it’s infancy, we’ve begun to see the maturation of some of the earlier players as they eye exits through SPACs/IPOs & M&A. On this call we’ll hear from two investment professionals who have guided & advised companies on the process of going public or through an acquisition, they also have a unique focus within the Built Environment and will touch on trends in later stage activity in the space, as well as what the future might hold.
BuiltWorlds Venture Forum Demo Drop – Converge
Converge’s construction data platform provides optimisation intelligence for the entire construction process, using the power of AI and data from its state of the art sensors that measure concrete strength, structural health, and asset location from factory to installation. On a planet with finite resources, our mission is to build the future more efficiently, safely, and sustainably, by digitising physical reality on the job site.
2020 Venture Conference: Running Successful Pilot Programs with Graycor, StructionSite, Togal, Coastal Construction, and Bechtel
There is no standard and little to benchmark off of when determining how to run pilot programs. Hear from industry leaders on their experiences and best practices when working through a pilot program.
February Design Call
With major moves like Autodesk’s recent acquisition of Spacemaker.ai, artificial intelligence and advances in digital twin technology continue to transform the practices of architecture and engineering and how we actually […]
February Design Call: Brey Tucker, Autodesk. Beyond Generative Design
Brey Tucker, Senior Industry Manager, Autodesk, shares a view of what lies beyond generative design and discusses how how data flows between the design and construction phases of projects and how that movement of data is changing the way we approach projects.
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