Bimsense has secured significant funding to bring its smart building information and facilities management software to market.
The £250,000 funding is from NPIF, Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia Asset Management and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund. The funding will commercialise Operance and create 10 new jobs over the next two years.
Bimsense was launched four years ago by Ian Yeo and Scott Pilgrim, who had become frustrated by the traditional approach to building design, construction and management.
Since then it has advised to property owners, developers and contractors on major developments throughout the UK on how to reduce project risks, while helping to digitally transform their operations.
At the same time, the company has been developing its Operance software to make buildings safer, healthier and more efficient.
Ian Yeo, CEO of Bimsense, said: “We’re delighted and excited to secure this investment to deliver our long-term ambition of digitising and ‘humanising’ building information to help create safer, healthier places for people to live, work and spend their leisure time.
“We know the devastating effects that poor, mismanaged information and ill-informed decisions can have on people’s lives. This funding helps us to tackle these issues, by enabling project teams to develop better quality information for end-users to access in a really easy, user-friendly way.”
Based at the Centre for Digital Innovation (C4DI) tech hub in Hull, Bimsense specialises in building information modelling (BIM), which allows construction projects to be digitally built, before they are physically built in order to address issues normally identified on site or after completion.
BIM helps save time and money, improve quality and reduce potential safety risks, while the data it provides also enables building owners to operate and maintain buildings efficiently over the long term.
BIM is widely accepted as the best way to achieve the Government’s aim of reducing construction and operating costs by a third, and is in line with the Grenfell Tower report’s recommendation to create a digital lifecycle record.
The new funding will be used to develop further and commercialise Operance, which helps meet this challenge by creating a “golden thread” – a digital audit trail covering the entire history of facilities, enabling better decision making and increased accountability.
Maurice Disai, Investment Associate at Mercia, said: “Although construction and property management is the fourth biggest contributor to GDP, it is one of the least digitised sectors. The Operance system could have a huge impact in terms of reducing costs and improving safety and quality of life for building users.
“The proof of concept version of this software has already generated a great deal of interest within the industry by showing the cost and performance benefits of using a digital building information platform. The funding will allow Bimsense to further enhance the product and bring it to market.”
Stephen Parnaby OBE, Chair of the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership, added: “We are delighted to see another Humber business benefit from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, which continues to bring vital finance to the region’s businesses. This funding will not only create additional local employment and opportunities within the supply chain, but will also help many other construction companies through its innovative software.”
