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Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Web Software |
Founded | 2009 |
Founders | Peter Krebs Mads Jensen |
Headquarters | London, New York |
Key people | Andrew Corney Peter Krebs Hugh McEvoy Hari Natarajan |
Products | Sefaira Architecture Sefaira Systems |
Number of employees | 50 |
Parent | Trimble Inc. |
Website | http://www.sefaira.com/ |
Sefaira is a software company specializing in energy efficient building design.[1] In 2011, Sefaira won the Green Building Innovation of the Year award at London’s Ecobuild.[2][3][4] The company was founded in 2009.[5]
On February 8, 2016, Trimble Inc. announced the acquisition of Sefaira Ltd. Sefaira will join SketchUp in the Trimble Architecture & Design division, part of Trimble Buildings.[6][7][8][9]
Sefaira was founded in 2009 by Peter Krebs and Mads Jensen to provide the building industry with software to design and create buildings.[5]
The founders derived the name Sefaira from the Greek word Sfera or sphere, symbolizing the earth and the company’s holistic approach to building-energy conservation.[buzzword][10]
In 2009, Sefaira won the INSEAD Business Venture Competition, and shortly after Sefaira was incorporated in London, UK, with offices opening in New York, US, shortly thereafter.[5][11]
In 2011, the cloud-based analysis platform was voted the most promising new technology at the London Ecobuild.[12]
In April 2012, the company announced that it had received $10.8 million in Series A funding from Braemar Energy Ventures in partnership with Amsterdam-based Chrysalix SET and UK-based Hermes GPE.,[2][13][14] and in July 2012, the company announced the public launch of the Sefaira web application.[15]
In 2013 and 2014, Sefaira won several awards and accolades, including being listed as part of the Global Cleantech 100 - the top 100 cleantech companies judged.[16]
The company’s primary product is Sefaira, a web-based performance analysis platform specifically built for conceptual design.[17] Sefaira is targeted towards architects, engineers, consultants and building designers. It performs whole-building physics-based analysis of water, carbon and renewable energy potential allowing designers and architects to explore design options.[1][17][18] The software includes support for SketchUp. In 2013, Sefaira released a new plugin for SketchUp that connects energy analysis and daylight to building design.[19] In 2014, Sefaira released a new plugin for Autodesk Revit that connects energy analysis and daylight to building design.[20] In 2015, Sefaira released Sefaira Systems, a product designed for HVAC designers to do system sizing and energy analysis using SketchUp and Revit models.[21] In 2020, Trimble released SketchUp Studio 2020, whose file format can be used by Sefaira.[22]