Technology companies ShapeDiver and Swarm, leaders in the development of cloud-based parametric computation and collaboration, announced plans to merge. Together, ShapeDiver and Swarm will offer the largest and most powerful cloud-native, Software as a Service (SaaS) platform for customizing workflows and accelerating the design and manufacturing of diverse products and buildings in the world. As a result of the merger, ShapeDiver, founded in Austria in 2017, is now a US Delaware corporation. Terms of the agreement, which includes a direct investment by Thornton Tomasetti, were not disclosed.
“Parametric models are an extremely powerful tool in many industries, and our platform helps our customers interact with their models easily, without special software or specific technical knowledge. It opens up the world of parametric modeling to everyone, bringing a new level of innovation and speed to product design and manufacturing,” said Mathias Höbinger, co-founder of ShapeDiver. “This merger of two industry technology leaders with complementary end markets gives us a broader global footprint as well as operational enhancements to a rapidly growing platform.”
ShapeDiver offers a robust and scalable cloud infrastructure for hosting, managing and sharing parametric 3D files (Grasshopper® files). It has been used to enhance product design and mass customization by many companies worldwide in diverse industries including automotive, transportation, apparel, jewelry, footwear, furniture, medical devices, 3D printing and urban design.
Swarm, developed in New York by Thornton Tomasetti’s CORE studio in 2018, was launched within the firm’s TTWiiN accelerator in 2019 to give architects and engineers the ability to share and control complex parametric models of their projects without requiring special expertise in parametric design software. Swarm also developed applications that integrate into commonly used desktop applications like SAP2000®, ETABS®, Autodesk® Revit® and Adobe® Illustrator®. It is currently used by more than a thousand architects and engineers from the many of the top 50 AEC companies worldwide.
“We are dedicated to driving innovation in the AEC world, and with the development of Swarm, we are able to deliver the power of parametric modeling to everyday users. Designers can access important information in minutes rather than days or weeks,” said Robert Otani, chief technology officer at Thornton Tomasetti. “Together with ShapeDiver, we will be able to serve more customers around the world and create new product features for our clients within this robust and proven platform.”
In tandem with the merger, Thornton Tomasetti announced an investment in ShapeDiver. “Through our TTWiiN accelerator, we are providing investment capital to accelerate the breadth and depth of the platform, our complementary expertise in developing new features and an innate understanding of the specific needs of our enterprise AEC colleagues,” said Thomas Scarangello, Thornton Tomasetti’s executive chairman.
ShapeDiver is recognized for its contributions to more than a dozen design-driven industries where innovation, precision and speed to market are the key to success. ShapeDiver’s clients include German large-scale 3D printers BigRep, global structural engineering firm Fast + Epp, construction robotics company Toggle and custom furniture designer Unruh, Chilean engineered wood and forestry company Arauco, Norwegian company Goldfish Boat, and Italian custom jewelry designers Nove25, among many others.
“Our clients value the ability to expand their design options with parametric modeling. In addition to greater creativity and flexibility, parametric models enable them to immediately translate their work into solutions and accelerate their manufacturing timeline,” said Ezequiel Lopez, principal of ShapeDiver. “Our merger with Swarm will help us expand and bring these tools to more users in the AEC world. In addition, we will tap CORE studio’s expertise in developing new tools to enhance collaborative workflows and access parametric models from various software environments. We are excited to add the Swarm platform and its talent to our ShapeDiver team.”