Nemetschek Group Invests in Startup Preoptima to Drive Sustainability in the Construction Industry
- Preoptima has developed a world-first carbon hub for the built environment, powered by AI and generative design, covering the entire building lifecycle – from concept to refurbishment and demolition
- Solution provides accurate carbon calculations at the intersection of architecture and engineering
- Nemetschek Group led investment round, strengthening the positioning as driver of more sustainability in the industry
Munich, March 2, 2023 – The Nemetschek Group, a leading global software provider for the AEC/O and media & entertainment industries, announced today their investment in the start-up Preoptima, a carbon hub for the built environment. This investment further expands the Nemetschek Group's venture strategy of driving sustainability and innovation in the construction industry.
Preoptima’s software is set to drive radical reductions of carbon in the built environment globally. The funding will be used to launch their WholeLifeCarbon API, which will provide uniquely accurate carbon calculations seamlessly integrated with existing workflows and toolsets.
This will extend the current products, which use generative design and Artificial Intelligence to optimize carbon emissions from the earliest design onwards.
“Worldwide, more than half of all people live in cities. At the same time, buildings are now responsible for 37% of global CO2 emissions. As urbanization continues, this trend will intensify. The construction industry must act and decarbonize its value chain”, states László Vértesi, Head of Industry Solutions Planning & Design Division at the Nemetschek Group. “Preoptima provides real value to our core market, the building design community, by enabling a precise assessment of full carbon impact of projects in the early design phase”, he adds.
Since its launch in the second half of 2022, Preoptima has quickly achieved national and international visibility. Preoptima is an Innovative Startup Member of the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) and has been featured in the UKGBC’s Solutions Library. Preoptima is also one of Tech Nation's Rising Stars 5.0 City Winners. With pilot projects worldwide, Preoptima aims to accelerate its global growth to avoid carbon emissions through the building lifecycle.
“Preoptima’s mission is to radically reduce CO2 emissions from the built environment, which is one of the most impactful levers for reducing emissions globally. By using generative artificial intelligence at the intersection of architecture and engineering, our solutions offer a new approach to tackling the issue of decarbonizing a whole industry,” said Aileen Ryan, co-founder and CEO of Preoptima.”
Tanja Kufner, Head of Startups & Venture Investments at the Nemetschek Group, adds, “Preoptima’s cloud-based software platform that predetermines, measures, manages, and mitigates carbon emissions throughout the lifetime by using AI is tackling one of the biggest challenges for the construction industry. Their solution can be used at every stage in the building lifecycle, allowing significant and quantitative carbon discussions between all stakeholders in the built environment.”
The Nemetschek Group brings a global reach as an investor in Preoptima and the investment is a perfect fit with their own solutions, such as the Vectorworks Embodied Carbon Calculator or Spacewell Energy Solutions but also with their engagement as one of the supporters of Madaster, the global cadaster for building materials.
About the Nemetschek Group
The Nemetschek Group is a pioneer for digital transformation in the AEC/O and the media & entertainment industries. With its intelligent software solutions, it covers the entire lifecycle of building and infrastructure projects, guides its customers into the future of digitalization and enables them to shape the world. As one of the leading corporate groups worldwide in this sector, the Nemetschek Group increases quality in the building process and improves the digital workflow for all those involved. Customers can design, build, and manage buildings more efficiently, sustainably and resource-saving. The focus is on the use of open standards (OPEN BIM). The portfolio also includes digital solutions for visualization, 3D modeling, and animation. The innovative solutions of the brands ALLPLAN, Bluebeam, Crem Solutions, dRofus, FRILO, Graphisoft, Maxon, Nevaris, RISA, SCIA, Solibri, Spacewell and Vectorworks in the four customer-oriented segments are used by approximately 6.5 million users worldwide. Founded by Prof. Georg Nemetschek in 1963, the Nemetschek Group today employs around 3,400 experts all over the world.
Publicly listed since 1999 and part of the MDAX and TecDAX, Nemetschek generated revenues of EUR 801.8 million and an EBITDA of EUR 257.0 million in 2022, according to preliminary figures.
About Preoptima
Preoptima was founded as an impact-driven, climate tech venture. The aim is to both avoid and reduce hundreds of megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the global built environment. Built on globally-leading research, Preoptima combines its scientific roots with executive business leadership and the finest software engineering, to create delightful products that finally enable the transparency and collaboration that built environment professionals globally need to drive meaningful carbon reduction at the speed and scale required.
