An IA platform using some of Autodesk Platform Services’ API
Today, we’re receiving Aleksandar Balicevac, one of the cofounders of an innovative Platform for the building Industry called Bimify. This platform allows to accelerate the creation of digital models of our built environment, which is a highly strategic need for the owners, especially for operation and maintenance phases.
Aleksandar Balicevac – CEO & cofounder of Bimify
Email: aleksandar@bimify.com
Hi Aleksandar, happy to receive you on ABCD Blog. Could you please introduce yourself in a few words?
Thank you for the highlight Emmanuel! Aleks, a father of 3, CEO and co-founder of Bimify. Coming from industrial engineering and management with specialisation in computer science and machine learning, and I have over 10 years of BIM experience.
What is your background and have you always been passionate about technology?
Not at all. Growing up in the Balkans, I had shifting interests during my upbringing, between the traditionally highly valued roles of the communist era, like doctor or military. Engineers were also highly valued, but despite good grades, I never felt I had an understanding of math. Fast forward to 2009, when I moved to Sweden, and my interests shifted radically, inspired by my father, who was already one of the pioneers in building toolsets for the optimization of workflows within Revit, shortly after the first Revit licenses were sold on the Swedish market. Gaining insight into what he was doing got me hooked not only on BIM, but also on the real-life application of math, which I could finally understand thanks to the visual, 3D representation of the results.
Why and how did you decide to create your company? Was it straight away to work on this platform initiative?
I inherited this vision from my partner in crime and co-founder — my father — back in 2014–2015. It was an easy take — who would not believe that the world’s largest asset will and should be digital? Even our roads, which are a much more challenging asset to digitize, are digital thanks to Google. This was followed by a simple “how”: with an automated one-stop shop that even non-BIM experts can use, it was a no-brainer for me. By 2019, when I finished my university studies, we had manually digitized over 20 million sqm of different buildings, so it was clear that the market adoption of information-driven building O&M had started taking off. After finishing my studies in 2019 and getting my fingers into the field of ML, I realized that we finally had the technology to make the vision happen, so we kicked off nearly right after that.
Could you present us your company in a few words as well? Who did you found it with? How many employees do you have?
As mentioned previously, I founded the company together with my father, Sam Balicevac. We are eight people in the core team, plus 8–10 consultants depending on the phase. At the same time, we feel much larger, as we have our heritage in a consulting constellation with over 180 developers and BIM experts that we still closely collaborate with. Besides the operations team, we have strong backing from industry-savvy investors and experts, consisting of both global and local leaders within their fields.
What is the solution that you develop, aiming at?
Bimify offers an automated platform for large-scale building digitalization with a single aim — to make building information available and up to date. With a clear data focus, we are an integral component of CAFM, digital twin, reporting, transaction and other applications where the data we provide is used to create actual value throughout the building lifecycle.
Why is it so important to digitize the built environment? And why did you decide to accelerate it and automate it?
Simply because data is the foundational layer for the green buildings of tomorrow. We have seen it in other industries that have come much further in their digital efforts — for example, manufacturing. Today, we have concepts of dark factories where everything is automated and connected. This would not be possible without the foundational data layer about production activities and resources. From a philosophical perspective, information drives knowledge, and without knowledge, there is no wisdom. And I think it’s hard to create wisdom with black-and-white pixels, lines, polylines or 3D points, which is how information about our buildings is stored today. We need these elements to be converted into structured data that speaks the language of our industry (walls, materials, dimensions, volumes, costs, and similar).
The main reason we decided to accelerate and automate this is because we realized that digitalisation was the first big bottleneck in the digital transition of the built environment. It had been done manually by highly skilled people — therefore usually imposing substantial costs with an unclear ROI impact for the end customer, the building owner, whose primary focus is the bottom line. Information is just an enabler, and an enabler with a high price tag is a hard sell. That’s why we made it our ambition to lower the cost and time of entry to accelerate the digital transition of existing buildings.
How many millions of square meters need to be digitized?
There are ≈223 billion square meters of buildings globally and there is a rough estimation that over 90% of the managed buildings don’t have updated BIM models or any BIM models at all. More than enough for us to make Bimify our life mission.
Is your platform using AI and how?
Yes, all of our automation is AI-based, since the deterministic approaches we tried were very limiting given the variation of the input formats we tackled and the variation of the data inputs within each format. We have been primarily focusing on automating repetitive manual tasks within building information modeling. Now we even see a lot of potential to use AI as a translator of the language natural to different user groups, translating it into the language that our machines speak.
It seems like you’re using APS. Could you explain us how?
That’s correct — primarily to build in Revit format and to enable the use of the Forge viewer.
Who is it targeted at? All the AEC ecosystem?
Basically, the whole AECO ecosystem. Our primary target group is owners and operators, and since one of the major entry points for information-driven processes within the built environment is refurbishments and retrofit projects, it was natural for us to serve even AEC.
Is it easy to use?
Very much so! That’s what our award at the Nordic BIM Summit in 2024 was about, where one of your colleagues, among others, was on the jury. There was very little focus on automation and a lot on simplicity. The jury’s punchline was: “Buying a BIM model on Bimify is as easy as buying a Tesla online.”
What kind of file formats is it generating, in which LOD and is the size optimized?
For now, Revit, Archicad, and IFC, as those are the most requested ones by the industry. When it comes to the LOD, it is optimized for LOD 200, but it can go as high as LOD 500. Of course, the higher the LOD, the more post-processing is needed.
How does it work? What kind of data entry does it need and is there a long manual process before obtaining a result?
The supported inputs are 2D floor plans in PDF, CAD, or image format, and point cloud files in different formats. Regarding the manual process, it varies depending on the building type and the final model specification. The higher the complexity of the end result, the greater the manual post-processing effort. Scan2BIM is still at an early stage, so that output is even more demanding, but it’s gaining more development focus on our side now.
Does it handle all architectural entities creation?
Yes. Currently, it covers walls (interior/exterior), doors (roughly 20 types), windows (roughly 20 types), columns, slabs, plumbing fixtures, and rooms. What’s left to add to a typical model for facility management are roofs, kitchens, stairs/railings, and vertical openings, which are also on our agenda.
Can it load Customers templates or objects (RFT, RFA)?
Yes. As I mentioned previously, we serve the AEC sector as well, where typically each practice has its own templates and standards. As we are not just automating the building of models but aiming to speed up the digital transition of the built environment, we automate wherever we can achieve results that align with our vision and strategy.
Do you have a plugin for Revit?
Not at the moment, as we are using all the technology internally to deliver our services at high speed and quality to the market. Once we start commercializing the technology, it will be a natural step for us to come closer to the actual work environment of the end users through plugins in their software of choice.
Is it connected to ACC?
Not yet, but we are working on it (probably releasing by the end of 2025). Again, with the same reasoning as in the previous question — we need to plug into the actual work environment of the customers, where they spend most of their time. What we offer is an information package, and it’s worth almost nothing if it’s not plugged into an application where it’s used on a daily basis to create value.
What is the pricing model?
Simple — per square meter, taking into consideration the input reference, model configuration (i.e., LOD), and the building type.
Do you have some nice Customers References that you can share with us?
One interesting case to mention is a workflow that we never even thought of — conversion of design PDFs to BIM. On multiple markets globally, the originator of the design owns the BIM file and delivers only CADs or PDFs. When inherited by another practice, it needs to go back to BIM format for further project execution. We did a case study with one of our customers (a UK top 100 architectural practice) where three buildings were processed through our platform and three were done internally. Our process created 40% savings in time and cost, which has a substantial impact on profitability and capacity. Now, you need to consider that we are talking about LOD 300–350 models, very high in detail. The best part is that the quality of our models was higher, given the minimized human effort in the process.
Will your present your solution to French Customers? When and where?
Yes! If you are interested in meeting us, experiencing the Bimify demo, and discussing details, we’ll be at the Release AEC (release-aec.com) event in Paris on the 17th of November. Our demo slot is from 11:00 to 13:00 at Demo Suite Pleyel 3. The best part — free access for any AECO professional.
Do you have a subsidiary in France? Or a team?
Not at the moment. Our typical point of entry to different markets is through partners, where we see Bimify as a value-adding component, for example, Autodesk resellers. In the UK, Nordics, and the US, we partner with some of the biggest. As we are fairly new to the French market, we are currently screening the partner landscape. If you are a software provider within AECO and see added value in the data layer, feel free to reach out.
Would you like to say something specific to our readers?
Maybe just to add that, despite some parts of our technology being cool in my opinion, I hope our vision sparks new ideas around outcome-oriented, information-driven workflows powered by Bimify and complementary software.
Thanks a lot for your time Aleksandar. We wish you a big success.
Thank you, Emmanuel! Much appreciated for bringing us into the spotlight.