Bentley Systems Inc., an infrastructure engineering software company in Exton, Pennsylvania, has acquired Salt Lake City-based Blyncsy, a provider of artificial intelligence services for departments of transportation to support operations and maintenance activities. Blyncsy will be part of Bentley Systems’ iTwin Ventures portfolio.
Founded in 2014 by CEO Mark Pittman, Blyncsy applies computer vision and artificial intelligence in analyzing commonly available imagery to identify maintenance issues on roadway networks. Pittman said he originally conceived the idea for the company while stuck at a traffic light, believing there had to be ways to combine “real-time” condition data and innovative technologies to help departments of transportation become more efficient. He said Blyncsy’s AI services replace costly and slow manual data collection efforts, reducing the need for personnel or specialized vehicles or hardware in the field and improving transportation owner-operators’ awareness and timely mitigation of road conditions.
“Blyncsy is committed to applying the latest AI and machine learning techniques to benefit transportation networks,” Pittman said. “This alignment with Bentley will only strengthen the value to our users and together we will provide even deeper asset analytics to transportation owners, to support the drivers of today and tomorrow.”
“Blyncsy came to our attention for potential participation in a successive venture capital investment round,” said Mike Schellhase, Bentley’s iTwin Ventures managing executive. “But we were so convinced of the significance of their breakthrough that we undertook its outright acquisition, in order to scale it rapidly and pervasively. We expect investments in widespread asset analytics to accelerate leveraging infrastructure digital twins.”
Blyncsy will adopt Bentley’s iTwin platform for immersive integration with infrastructure owners’ engineering and simulation models, and Bentley will incorporate and bring to market Blyncsy’s AI services within its emerging mobility digital twin offerings, Schellhase said.