Autodesk completes its most expensive acquisition yet to buy US-based water industry software specialist, Innovyze.
Eclipsing the US$875 million invested in Plangrid in 2018 (post), Autodesk has today announced a US$1 billion deal to acquire Portland, Oregon-based Innovyze, a global leader in water infrastructure software. Autodesk says the acquisition positions it as a technology leader in end-to-end water infrastructure solutions from design to operations, and accelerates Autodesk’s digital twin strategy.
Announcing the deal alongside Colby Manwaring, Innovyze’s CEO, Amy Bunszel (Autodesk’s executive vice president, AEC design solutions) said it also constituted Autodesk’s “first big push into the operations market.” Digital Twins got mentioned a few times during the press conference – two days after Autodesk launched the public beta of its Tandem Digital Twin Platform (see also November 2020 post: Bentley and Autodesk push ‘Digital Twin’ initiatives).
Innovyze
For 35 years, 240-strong Innovyze has been developing software for the water industry and now has approximately 3,000 customers worldwide, including water and sewerage utilities, river and flood protection authorities professional services businesses and industrial water consumers. Its UK customers include Anglian Water (also an Autodesk customer), Thames Water, the Environment Agency, and engineering services businesses such as AECOM, Arup, Atkins, Jacobs and Stantec (all also Autodesk customers).
Innovyze’s modelling, simulation, and predictive analysis solutions enable more cost-effective and sustainably designed water distribution networks, water collection systems, water and wastewater treatment plants, and flood protection systems. These solutions include the December 2020-launched Info360: “a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, Info360.com, which enables water and wastewater utilities to monitor, analyze, and optimize their operations using the power and convenience of the cloud” (and which has a product name also echoing Autodesk’s own BIM 360).
Autodesk says: “Combining Innovyze’s portfolio with the power of Autodesk’s design and analysis solutions, including Autodesk Civil 3D, Autodesk InfraWorks, and the Autodesk Construction Cloud, offers civil engineers, water utility companies and water experts the ability to better respond to issues and to improve planning.”
Bunzl talked about the nine trillion gallons of water lost each year worldwide due to prolonged leaks and pipe breaks:
“But we cannot manage or fix what we cannot see. Innovyze’s portfolio of operational analytics, distribution modeling, and asset management solutions provides the insight needed to identify this and other potential problems before they become a crisis.”
Colby Manwaring said:
“For thirty-five years Innovyze has been a hidden part of the daily lives of millions of people around the world, helping to deliver fresh, clean water, managing sewage and flooding in our communities, and turning wastewater into safe water. Similarly, if you look at the built world around us, Autodesk’s design DNA is found in just about every structure you see above ground and below, so it makes strategic sense to bring together our complementary organizations critical to much of the world’s population. We look forward to completing the acquisition and getting to work, together.”
Update (31 March 2021) – The deal was confirmed closed on 31 March 2021. Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost said: “This is a software acquisition, but also a clear statement of Autodesk’s corporate commitment to improve our planet.”
