Bentley Systems expanding through acquisition

4019 Bentley Systems continues to expand its operations through acquisitions. The firm is now further developing its portfolio with the acquisition of Keynetix, a UK-headquartered provider of cloud-based software for capturing, visualising, modelling, and sharing of geotechnical data. The company says that the addition of Keynetix software expands its geotechnical offerings and allows it to develop subsurface digital twins for infrastructure projects and assets.

According to the company, subsurface digital twins can help assess and manage risks in infrastructure projects. They are also valuable for planning, design, construction and operations of infrastructure assets. The creation and curation of subsurface digital twins involves modelling the underground environment (geology, hydrology, chemistry, and engineering properties, and the underground infrastructure), and utility networks, structures, and tunnels – and then analyzing and simulating the subsurface behavior. Supplementing borehole reports managed by Bentley’s gINT software, Keynetix’s cloud-based geotechnical knowledge management system captures and manages underground environment information for Bentley’s geotechnical analysis applications, PLAXIS and SoilVision.

Mark Bevan, associate director, ground investigation data systems for UK-based Structural Soils, Ltd., a member of the RSK Group, said, “Bentley’s gINT and Keynetix’s HoleBASE software platforms are core, business critical tools within our ground investigation (GI) businesses, and have been so for more than 20 years. The acquisition of Keynetix’s modern and innovative software into the Bentley portfolio, alongside the mature and proven gINT platform, is a breath-taking and exciting landmark moment within the GI digital landscape. The rapidly growing Bentley geotechnical platform is helping to maximize the potential positives of the digital shift we are experiencing within the GI workplace. Ground investigation is truly going digital.”

Bob Mankowski, vice president and business unit executive of digital cities for Bentley Systems, said, “Infrastructure professionals know that the geologic, hydrologic, chemical and engineering properties of a potential project site, and the infrastructure assets buried beneath the soil, roads, and other structures represent some of the greatest risks to infrastructure project safety, budgets, and schedules. Having a subsurface digital twin – a 3D representation of the subsurface coupled with models to analyse and simulate behaviour – will be immensely valuable in all phases of the asset lifecycle. The Keynetix team and their technology bring decades of experience and cutting-edge cloud services to Bentley’s already strong geotechnical portfolio – gINT, PLAXIS, and SoilVision – and will accelerate the progress of our vision for subsurface digital twins.