Smart city design and planning platform Vu.City has secured a multi-million pound series A investment from global engineering and design consultancy Ramboll.
The investment will support Vu.City’s ambition to become a marketplace for data and solution providers to inform the development of cities, while scaling into new markets, geographies and industry verticals.
Ramboll joins existing shareholder Grosvenor Hill Ventures, which is the technology investment subsidiary of global real estate advisory firm Savills, and GIA Surveyors.
Digital twin platform
Over the last three years, Vu.City reports it has been helping architects, developers, planners and local authorities across the UK and Ireland make better decisions on the future of cities with proposed development through use of its interactive 3D digital twin city models.
Ramboll chief operating officer Mathew Riley, who joins the Vu.City board, reckons city-wide digital twin technologies are a crucial tool to support the development of sustainable and liveable cities. “Vu.City brings incredible transparency to inform crucial decision-making,” he said.
“Strong collaboration and co-creation across our industry is critical to developing and scaling innovative solutions to complex challenges.”
Vu.City claims to have the whole of London modelled to 15cm accuracy, and 90 per cent of boroughs use the platform. With 22 further towns and cities also modelled, local authorities, developers, architects and planners are using Vu.City to provide accurate, visual information and analysis to inform better decision-making.
“Strong collaboration and co-creation across our industry is critical to developing and scaling innovative solutions to complex challenges”
The platform allows those involved in developments to discover opportunities and limitations with camera tools able to study views from bird’s-eye to pedestrian level. It uses planning data layers that are relevant to each city from public and private sector sources.
This enables developers to see if a site is near any listed buildings or in a conservation area right away and examine other key factors, such as pollution and public accessibility.