Faro Technologies acquires Holo Builder

The spin-off of RWTH Aachen University has new owners. The old shareholders will receive 34 million US dollars.

The Aachen-based start-up Holo Builder is going to the US technology company Faro Technologies. Holo Builder offers a software solution for capturing and virtually managing construction progress with 360° cameras. Holo Builder has customers in more than 35 countries and has documented more than 28,000 projects to date. The start-up is now based in San Francisco, but much of its research and development work continues to take place in Aachen, Germany. Holo Builder's existing shareholders received a cash payment of $34 million.

"The merger of Holo Builder and Faro advances our vision of digitizing the physical world for process automation and workflow optimization," said Mostafa Akbari-Hochberg, founder of Holo Builder. "The powerful combination of high-precision laser scanning with 360° photo capture and real-time collaboration will provide both companies' customers with a comprehensive solution for digital twins."

The acquisition required NRW.Bank to sell its shares. It had held a stake in the start-up since January 2019. "As the development bank for North Rhine-Westphalia, we have accompanied Holo Builder in the expansion of the NRW site and supported its growth, which has now reached a point where the start-up is interesting for the participation of a strategic partner," says Michael Stölting, member of the Management Board of NRW.Bank. In the last financial year, Holo Builder had achieved sales of four million US dollars, with an annual growth rate of almost 75 percent since 2019.