Gafcon Digital, a systems digital model integrator best known for providing owners and program managers digital twins regardless of modeling software tools used in design and construction, has been acquired by Anser Advisory, ranked No. 14 on ENR's list of Top 50 program management firms.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Gafcon Digital CEO John Turner says the company would largely operate as it had before, and he would take an executive role managing operations once the sale is completed later this year.
"[The acquisition] gives us the ability to scale both through existing relationships and in particular, existing contract vehicles," says Turner.
Santa Ana, Calif.-based Anser Advisory also gains several new services in the digital twin space.
“This is an exciting addition to the Anser Advisory organization that adds new expertise in the planning, configuration, and implementation of digital twins,” said CEO Bryan Carruthers, in a statement. "The Gafcon Digital team is a cross-disciplined lineup of specialists who ... focus on creating a digital thread from planning to construction and operations of built assets from an owner’s perspective and meeting the owner’s designated use case, whether creating BIM standards or minimizing the impact of their built assets on the environment. We believe the combination ... will be a game-changing advantage for owners of mission-critical infrastructure and capital programs and projects."
San Diego-based Gafcon Digital became an independent business after transitioning away from former parent company Gafcon Inc. in April 2022. Gafcon Inc. is a program and project manager, and will remain a separate business.
Turner says Gafcon Digital would continue to expand in providing plaform-agnostic digital twin services.
"It can be a platform from Microsoft or from AWS or Siemens," he says, "but we are unlocking the power of that platform by building an application on top of it. Because we use a cloud of clouds approach, we'll bring together the benefits of IoT data collection in one platform, the visualization, in another platform, too. Our unique selling point is that we are taking the best parts of all of these pieces of technology and align them purely for the owner to benefit."
Turner said operations will remain in San Diego. "Gafcon Digital is going to be kept somewhat self-contained because our focus has been very much on the commercial side, moving into some of the federal and and other public contracts," he said. Turner said Anser Advisory has strong business and relationships in those areas. "We're going to integrate over a period of time, but our role is really to put together service offerings and approaches, which can then be integrated back into the Anser project environment and improve the way [it services its] myriad types of customers."
The deal was brokered by Environmental Financial Consulting Group, which represented Gafcon Digital.
