Bentley to buy Seequent for US$1 billion

Bentley Systems has entered into an agreement with investors led by Accel-KKR to acquire 3D Modelling company Seequent for approximately US$1 billion.

New Zealand-based Seequent is a leader in software for geological and geophysical modelling, geotechnical stability, and cloud services for geodata management, visibility, and collaboration.

The company serve the world’s top mining companies, geologists, hydrogeologists, geophysicists, geotechnical engineers, and civil engineers in over 100 countries.

According to Bentley, the acquisition is expected to initially add approximately 10% to each of the company’s key financial metrics (ARR, annual revenue, and EBITDA). The combination will deepen the potential of infrastructure digital twins to help understand and mitigate environmental risks, advancing resilience and sustainability.

Subsurface conditions comprise the ‘infrastructure of our infrastructure’ and literally underlie the earth’s major environmental risks. Bentley’s current offerings enable digital twins to incorporate what’s constructed ‘near surface,’ such as foundations, drainage facilities and buried utilities. The addition of Seequent will make it possible for infrastructure digital twins to reach full subsurface depths, augmenting environmental resilience against flood, seismic, climate, and water security threats, allowing for deeper infrastructure digital twins.

Bentley’s CEO Greg Bentley talking about Seequent, said, “They have made farsighted decisions to benefit the future at every stage: identifying and then laser-focusing on the 3D ‘vertical’ opportunity in earth modeling, institutionalizing a subscription commercial model from the outset, directly populating the appropriate global markets, acquiring and consolidating the best software for adjacent disciplines, and bringing it all together with cloud services, ready for digital twins advancement together.”

The transaction is expected to close in Q2 subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Upon closing, Seequent will operate as a stand-alone Bentley subsidiary, with Seequent’s current Chief Operating Officer Graham Grant, succeeding its retiring CEO Shaun Maloney, reporting to Bentley’s Chief Product Officer Nicholas Cumins.