Bentley Systems Stock

Bentley Systems, Incorporated operates as an infrastructure engineering software company.

The company empowers people to design, build, and operate better and more resilient infrastructure through the adoption of the company’s intelligent digital twin solutions.

The company’s enduring commitment is to develop and support the most comprehensive portfolio of integrated software offerings across professional disciplines, project and asset lifecycles, infrastructure sectors, and geographies. The company’s software enables digital workflows across engineering disciplines, across distributed project teams, and from offices to the field. Moreover, the company’s intelligent digital twin solutions empower its users to achieve sustainable development goals (‘SDGs’) by realizing outcomes that are more sustainable and resilient.

The company’s users design, build, and operate projects and assets across the following infrastructure sectors:

Public Works/Utilities, which represents approximately 58% of the company’s sector-attributable annualized recurring revenues (‘ARR’), includes roads, rail, bridges, tunnels, airports, and ports; federal, state, and municipal agencies; and networks for electricity, gas, water, wastewater, and communications;

Resources, which represents approximately 26% of the company’s sector-attributable annualized recurring revenues (ARR), includes mining, oil and gas ‘upstream,’ offshore, pipelines, environmental management, and renewable energy;

Industrial, which represents approximately 10% of the company’s sector-attributable ARR, includes process and discrete manufacturing, oil and gas ‘downstream,’ and power generation; and

Commercial/Facilities, which represents approximately 6% of the company’s sector-attributable ARR, includes campuses, office buildings, retail facilities, and hospitals.

Products and Solutions

The company serves enterprises and professionals across the infrastructure lifecycle by improving project delivery and asset performance. For projects, the company’s software encompasses conception, planning, surveying, design, engineering, and construction, as well as the collaboration required to coordinate and share the work of interdisciplinary and/or distributed project teams. For assets, the company’s software spans the operating life of commissioned infrastructure assets, allowing the company’s accounts to manage engineering changes for safety and compliance and to model performance and reliability to support operations and maintenance decisions.

The company’s engineering and geoprofessional applications are primarily cloud-connected desktop modeling and simulation applications that support the breadth of engineering and geoprofessional disciplines. Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, provided via cloud and hybrid environments, extends enterprise collaboration during project delivery, and helps manage engineering information during operations and maintenance. Powering these products and solutions is iTwin Platform, the company’s cloud-native technology platform to create, curate, and leverage infrastructure digital twins.

The company’s comprehensive portfolio of integrated software offerings comprises:

Engineering Applications. The company offers an open modeling environment comprising domain-specific authoring applications and an open simulation environment comprising applications to analyze the functional performance of designs that work together to improve engineering quality, streamline production of multi-discipline documentation, and reduce rework. These Bentley Open applications for modeling and simulation support a wide variety of file formats – both Bentley and third-party – and industry standards and design codes, enabling digital workflows across design, simulation, and analysis, and ensuring engineering data is not locked in, but remains open and accessible.

The company’s engineering applications work together to improve infrastructure engineering quality and productivity, resulting in better project designs and deliverables. The company takes care to enable compatibility across successive generations of the company’s applications, which enables engineers, throughout their careers, to maintain continuity with their preferred interfaces, formats, and methodologies, while advancing their work at the leading edge of innovation.

The company’s open modeling applications include:

MicroStation, for flexible 3D design and documentation, providing the common modeling environment upon which the company’s applications are built;

OpenBridge, for the 3D design and documentation of bridges;

OpenBuildings, for the 3D design and documentation of buildings and their integrated structural, HVAC, electrical, and plumbing systems;

OpenCities, for the design and visualization of cities and campuses;

OpenComms, for the planning, engineering, construction, and maintenance of fiber, coax, and hybrid fiber-coax networks;

OpenFlows, for the planning, design, and operation of water, wastewater, and stormwater systems, incorporating hydrological, hydraulic, and flood modeling;

OpenPlant, for the 2D and 3D design and documentation of process plants;

OpenRail, for the planning, 3D design, and documentation of rail and transit systems;

OpenRoads, for the planning, 3D design, and documentation of roads and highways;

OpenSite, for the planning, 3D design, and documentation of building, residential development, and infrastructure sites;

OpenTower, for the 3D design and analysis of communication towers;

OpenTunnel, for the 3D design and analysis of tunnels;

OpenUtilities, for the design and management of electric, gas, water, wastewater, and district energy networks; and

OpenWindPower, for the structural analysis and design of fixed and floating offshore wind turbines.

The company’s open simulation applications include:

ADINA, for nonlinear simulation and analysis;

AutoPIPE, for analysis and simulation of pipe stress in industrial process plants;

CUBE, for multi-modal transportation network modeling and land-use modeling;

DYNAMEQ, for traffic simulation and dynamic traffic analysis;

EMME, for multimodal urban, regional, and transport planning;

LEGION, for pedestrian traffic simulation;

Power Line Systems (‘PLS’), for analysis and simulation of overhead electric power transmission lines and their structures;

RAM, for analysis and simulation of building structural performance;

SACS, for analysis and simulation of offshore structural performance;

SPIDA, for analysis and simulation of utility poles and overhead assets; and

STAAD, for analysis and simulation of infrastructure.

Geoprofessional Applications. The company’s geoprofessional applications support modeling and simulation to help engineers and scientists develop a detailed understanding, and take full account of, near and deep subsurface conditions.

These include industry-leading earth modeling, subsurface-data management, and geoprofessional team collaboration software and geotechnical products that supplement visible built-asset representations above ground with more probabilistic modeling of subsurface conditions – deepening the potential of infrastructure digital twins.

The company’s geoprofessional applications include:

AGS, for processing, inversion, and visualization of geophysical data;

Central, for geological model management, to visualize, track, integrate, and manage geoscience data from a centralized, auditable environment;

GeoStudio, for integrated geotechnical analysis of slope stability, groundwater flow, and heat and mass transfer in soil and rock;

Imago, for the capture and management of drilling core images;

Leapfrog, for 3D implicit modeling designed to rapidly integrate, communicate, and interpret geological data;

MX Deposit, cloud drill hole software for simplifying and controlling how drill and other field data is collected, managed, and shared throughout the lifecycle of an ore deposit from early exploration through to mine production;

Oasis montaj, for the quality control, correction, visualization, analysis, and interpretation of geophysical, geologic and geochemical data;

OpenGround, for geotechnical information management for collecting, reporting, managing, visualizing, analyzing, and accessing geotechnical data; and

PLAXIS, for geotechnical analysis to solve common and complex geotechnical problems, including advanced analysis for excavations, foundations, tunnels, and other infrastructure projects.

Bentley Infrastructure Cloud. The company’s enterprise information systems span the end-to-end lifecycle and value chain of the world’s infrastructure, helping engineers to produce higher quality deliverables, contractors to execute better with their supply chain, and owners to have a complete picture of their asset as early as possible.

Bentley Infrastructure Cloud encompasses:

ProjectWise, for project delivery, supporting information and document management, and engineering-specific collaboration and work-sharing for distributed project teams and enterprises;

SYNCHRO, for construction, spatially and temporally integrating a project’s 3D engineering models into its construction schedules to visualize and assess sequencing strategies; and

AssetWise, for asset operations, capturing and managing changes to engineering models and enterprise information for compliance and safety, and to model performance and reliability.

By unifying data between engineering applications and enterprise systems, Bentley Infrastructure Cloud helps organizations manage their data in a single environment, enabling integrated workflows, improved collaboration, and increased productivity. Data also can be easily enriched throughout the lifecycle. Powered by the iTwin Platform and Bentley’s infrastructure schemas and thus seamlessly integrating with Bentley Open applications, Bentley Infrastructure Cloud enables better creation, delivery, and ongoing operation of better infrastructure, through complete and evergreen digital twins.

Bentley iTwin Platform. The company’s iTwin Platform for infrastructure digital twin solutions, leveraging the company’s infrastructure schemas, enables users to create and curate cloud-native 4D/5D digital representations of physical infrastructure assets, incorporating underlying engineering information federated with operational and enterprise data, and then to model, simulate, analyze, synchronize, track, and predict performance over time. Using digital twins, the company’s users can more fully extend digital workflows across the entire infrastructure lifecycle, increasing the value of infrastructure engineers’ work.

Bentley iTwin Platform powers Bentley Infrastructure Cloud to add digital twin capabilities to the company’s offerings for project delivery, construction, and asset operations. It also supports an emerging ecosystem of third-party developers who use iTwin.js, an open-source development library, to develop desktop, mobile, or web apps that leverage the iTwin Platform or that augment the company’s iTwin products or those from third parties.

Some capabilities of the iTwin Platform are offered as discrete iTwin products. These include:

iTwin Capture, for capturing, modeling, analyzing, and sharing reality data, enabling users to easily create engineering-ready, high-resolution 3D meshes of infrastructure assets using drone video and survey imagery;

iTwin Experience, for visualizing and navigating digital twins, empowering owner-operators and their constituents with insights into critical infrastructure; and

iTwin IoT, for acquiring and analyzing sensor data, enabling users to seamlessly incorporate Internet of Things (‘IoT’) data created by sensors and condition monitoring devices for real-time safety and risk monitoring in infrastructure operations and construction activities.

Commercial Offerings

Licensing and Subscriptions

The company offers a variety of licensing and subscription options so that users can choose what works best for them, their project, and their organization.

For larger organizations with centralized management of their engineering software portfolio, the company offers its Enterprise 365 (‘E365’) subscription. The company’s E365 subscription is an all-inclusive global consumption-based plan which provides access to the company’s comprehensive portfolio of solutions with uniform pricing across all countries. E365 subscriptions require a Cloud Services Subscription (‘CSS’) and are charged to accounts primarily based upon daily usage or elective subscriptions, dependent on product. They are also inclusive of ‘Success Plans’. The company’s ProjectWise and AssetWise enterprise collaboration solutions utilized under E365 are charged based on the total number of users within a calendar quarter, or fixed asset bands, respectively. While the majority of the company’s E365 subscriptions revenue is attributed to daily consumption of the company’s applications, E365 subscriptions can contain floors or collars on usage charges.

A perpetual license for Bentley software is a one-time purchase with an annual maintenance subscription, called SELECT, which includes 24/7 technical support, access to learning resources, and the ability to exchange licenses for other software once a year. In addition, SELECT offers license pooling, which enables software access from multiple computers, and term licenses, which enables users to access software beyond their license entitlements for monthly or quarterly periods to cover short-term surges in their workload.

The company also offers a 12-month named-user subscription, including license, training, and knowledgeable engineering support procured through the company’s e-store, Virtuosity, which is a convenient and cost-effective way for infrastructure professionals in small- and medium-sized businesses (‘SMBs’) to access Bentley software.

The company delivers its Bentley Infrastructure Cloud capabilities under the company’s CSS, charged quarterly based on the number of users of various levels of functionality.

CSS streamlines the procurement, administration, and payment process for the company and its accounts for cloud offerings, term licenses, and recurring services. Participants in the company’s E365 program use CSS as the funding mechanism for their subscription. At the end of 2023, accounts representing approximately 60% of the company’s total ARR had chosen to institute, for licensing of the company’s software, the company’s commercial models eligible under CSS.

Success Plans and Services

For enterprise accounts, the company has transitioned from a traditional paradigm of on-demand technical support, and professional services contracted episodically, to instead delivering proactive and continuous engagement with users and accounts through ‘Success Plans.’ Success Plans are designed with business outcomes in mind, ensuring that accounts receive the best results from the company’s software. Working collaboratively with the company’s accounts, its User Success specialists, consisting of over 600 colleagues, most with domain experience and credentials in infrastructure engineering, deliver Success Plans through structured engagements based on explicit and standardized ‘Success Blueprints’ that include virtual or in-person engagements with subject matter experts. Success Plans, based on allotted credits toward multiple Success Blueprints per calendar quarter, are bundled into the company’s E365 subscription.

The company also offers specialized digital integration services and consulting through the company’s Cohesive business unit (described in more detail below), primarily to accounts that use IBM Maximo and the company’s AssetWise solutions for managing their infrastructure asset operations and maintenance.

Primary Growth Initiatives

Incremental to the company’s long-standing programmatic acquisition strategy, since 2020 the company has determinedly invested internal resources to accelerate organic growth, with increasing success, through the following primary growth initiatives:

Accretion in Enterprise Accounts: The company has established that E365 helps its accounts implement, propagate, and upgrade the company’s solutions more quickly, encouraging greater consumption of the company’s software and stronger account relationships. The company intends to continue to expand the reach of the company’s E365 subscription within virtually all of the company’s enterprise accounts.

Accretion in SMBs: New business from SMB accounts, including from hundreds of new ‘logos’ each quarter, has become a substantial contributor to the company’s overall ARR growth, and the company is encouraged to continue investment in the company’s Virtuosity business and e-store. Development and deployment of a ‘low touch’ and ultimately ‘no touch’ digital experience will enable this business to further scale and align with the market potential.

Catalyzing the Infrastructure Digital Twin Ecosystem: While engineering services firms (which make up approximately half of the company’s existing business) agree that digital twins are fundamental to the evolution of infrastructure engineering, they tend to lack firsthand experience of introducing data-centric offerings to owner-operators or examples of successful business models. Cohesive represents the company’s own investment to create a captive ‘digital integrator’ to prove business models that the company can subsequently impart to engineering services firms, accelerating the adoption of intelligent digital twin solutions.

Accounts

The company provides its software solutions to over 41,000 accounts in 194 countries worldwide. The company’s revenues are balanced and diversified between engineering and construction contracting firms who work together to deliver the design and construction of capital projects (representing 50% of the company’s 2023 total revenues), and their clients, the world’s public and private infrastructure asset owners and operators (representing 50% of the company’s 2023 total revenues).

The company brings its offerings to market primarily through direct sales channels, including through the company’s account managers and the company’s Virtuosity inside sales colleagues and e-store, which generated approximately 92% of the company’s 2023 total revenues. The company also relies on specialist channel partners in geographic regions where the company does not have a meaningful presence or where, for some of the company’s offerings, direct sales efforts are less economically feasible. Channel partners accounted for approximately 8% of the company’s 2023 total revenues.

Competition

The company’s key competitors in Public Works/Utilities applications include Autodesk, Inc., Trimble Inc., and Hexagon AB.

The company’s key competitors in Resources applications include Hexagon AB, the AVEVA unit of Schneider Electric, and Dassault Systèmes.

The company’s key competitors in Industrial applications include Hexagon AB, the AVEVA unit of Schneider Electric, and Dassault Systèmes.

The company’s key competitors in Commercial/Facilities applications include Autodesk, Inc., Nemetschek SE, and Trimble Inc.

The company’s key competitors in project delivery systems include Autodesk, Inc. and Oracle Corporation.

The company’s key competitors in asset performance systems include Aspen Technology, Inc., the AVEVA unit of Schneider Electric, Esri, and General Electric Company.

Intellectual Property

As of December 31, 2023, the company had 168 patents granted and 60 patents pending in the U.S., the first of which expires on June 28, 2024, and 33 patents granted and 59 patents pending internationally, the first of which expires on January 12, 2025.

In 2023, the company’s patent committee reviewed 16 invention disclosures submitted by the company’s software developers, and filed 15 U.S. and 12 foreign patent applications, while 14 U.S. and six foreign patents were granted. The company has registered 171 trademarks, including ‘Bentley,’ the Bentley logo, ‘AssetWise,’ ‘Bentley Infrastructure Cloud,’ ‘Bentley Open,’ ‘iTwin,’ ‘MicroStation,’ ‘ProjectWise,’ ‘Seequent,’ ‘SYNCHRO,’ and ‘Virtuosity,’ with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in several jurisdictions outside the U.S.

Production and Suppliers

The company’s principal supplier of cloud services is Microsoft, with whom the company has entered into a multi-year contract for a committed level of expenditures for Azure.

History

Bentley Systems, Incorporated was founded in 1984. The company was incorporated in California in 1984.