This morning, Autodesk announced the intention to acquire Portland extended reality (XR) startup The Wild, which has significant applications in collaboration for the architecture and engineering world. This milestone also marks a significant event for the local venture capital community as The Wild counts local firms Elevate Capital, Ideaship, Oregon Venture Fund, Portland Seed Fund, and The R Group among its investors.
“Our acquisition of The Wild reflects the rapid transformation taking place in the building industry, from the complexity of projects to the geographic diversity of teams who design, construct, and operate them,” said Andrew Anagnost, CEO and president, Autodesk. “XR is a must-have business imperative for today and an important part of Autodesk’s Forge platform vision.”
Serving more than 700 customers worldwide across its two platforms, The Wild’s XR technologies offer affordable, on-demand and in-context opportunities for deeper team collaboration. Its virtual format empowers remote workforces amid a rapidly evolving work landscape and offers an immersive environment for real-time ideation and decision making.
“The Wild and Autodesk share a common mission of encouraging a more productive and collaborative AEC industry, and in this case, one where teams can resolve issues in minutes from their desks rather than the traditional miles of costly travel,” said Gabe Paez, founder and CEO of The Wild. “The Wild’s customers understand the value from the get-go, building consensus as a team in the virtual world with the ability to make changes to their designs at the speed of thought.”
The Wild had raised more than $3 million in venture funding. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Gabe also posted on The Wild site:
Today, we are taking a giant leap forward on this journey. The Wild is a workspace where our customers can experience their data together from anywhere in the world. The worldwide leader in software to design, make, coordinate, and share this data is Autodesk. That is why I am thrilled to announce that The Wild will join Autodesk.
They understand that XR will revolutionize data interaction and project collaboration for professionals, especially for those in the AEC industry. They understand that this shift will profoundly change the way their customers work together across all the industries that they serve.
This acquisition represents their commitment to lead the way in XR and to further deliver integrated solutions that leverage their core products like Autodesk Construction Cloud (Autodesk BIM 360, Autodesk Build) Autodesk Revit, and Autodesk Navisworks.
For more information, see the Autodesk press release and Gabe’s post.
[Full disclosure: Gabe Paez, founder of The Wild, is a PIE alum. PIE also has a significant collaboration with Autodesk. I am the cofounder and general manager of PIE.]
