Trimble announced the acquisition of London/New York based Sefaira Ltd., a leading developer of cloud-based software for the design of sustainable and high-performance buildings. The acquisition of Sefaira expands Trimble's Design-Build-Operate (DBO) portfolio to include tools for designing high-performing buildings early in the conceptual phase of a project. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Today, buildings consume about 40 percent of global energy, according to the United Nations Environment Programme's Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiatives. Optimizing the built environment can therefore have a substantial impact on the drive towards sustainability and increased global energy efficiency. However, the most impactful energy savings can only be achieved if buildings are designed for efficiency at the beginning of the design process.
By providing sophisticated performance analysis via an intuitive user interface, Sefaira's solutions enable users to estimate, compare and optimize the energy, water, carbon and financial benefits of relevant design strategies. This allows users to effectively balance the investment between various building strategies, to maximize capital efficiency, minimize energy and water use and create high performing sustainable building designs at low cost. Sefaira analysis can be run with models created in SketchUp, Trimble's flagship building design tool for architects and engineers, as well as with models created in Autodesk® Revit. In addition, Sefaira provides robust tools that allow engineers and contractors to derive and analyze HVAC design scenarios from an architectural model.
"Architects rely on SketchUp to understand conceptual design choices and develop constructible models,' said Chris Keating, general manager of Trimble's Architecture & Design Division. "But today, design is no longer just about aesthetics. Architects need to consider building performance in a more intuitive way, and be able to collaborate better with the engineers who design the systems that make buildings work. We have been a development partner with Sefaira for years now, and we are excited to increase our commitment to this space by adding Sefaira's tools into Trimble's portfolio of products for building designers and engineers."
"Sefaira's tools are already being used by designers at more than 500 firms globally," said Mads Jensen, CEO of Sefaira. "Joining forces with Trimble will allow us to expand the reach of our tools much further, bringing performance analysis to many more architects around the world. This is an exciting milestone in our journey towards a future where building design is synonymous with high-performance, resulting in a built environment that is truly sustainable."
Founded in 2009, Sefaira is a leader in software for high-performance building design. Using Sefaira, architects and other building designers now have the real-time analysis capabilities that enable them to practice Performance-Based Design. This enables designers to create buildings that have the very best performance characteristics in terms of energy use, daylighting quality, carbon emissions, thermal comfort, construction and operating costs. Sefaira has won a variety of industry awards and has been named as a Global Cleantech 100 company in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
