The American software development company Bentley Systems has acquired Stockholm based Agency9. Agency9 works with larger municipalities with city-scale digital twin cloud services for city planning and related web-based 3D visualization. With this acquisition, the newly announced Bentley's new iTwin cloud services will align with Agency9 products like OpenCities Planner to target the urban planning sector.
“Our many city users globally have been asking for the useful capabilities which Agency9 has successfully implemented throughout Sweden, to take further advantage of their reality modeling programs. In fact, when we combine Bentley ContextCapture's 3D surveying advancements (based on hybrid aerial, UAV, and ground-based imagery) with our Connected Data Environment (CDE) technologies for geospatial-to-BIM integration, we make city-scale digital twins as a cloud service broadly accessible. Ultimately synchronizing reality and ‘virtuality,' OpenCities Planner offers the perfect web solution to enable every city in going digital,” said Phil Christensen, Bentley's senior vice president, reality modeling.
“Now that we're part of Bentley, we're confident about achieving the full global potential of Agency9's innovations. My colleagues and I, and our forward-thinking users in the Nordics, have been noted for pushing the envelope of geospatial integration and visual performance to new levels of detail. Now, as contributors toward unique city-scale digital twin cloud services from Bentley, we can foresee the realization of our users' vision to advance from urban planning to improving cities' asset performance,” said Håkan Engman, CEO of Agency9.
