Tom Scarangello

“Our leadership today stems from the vision of our leadership over 10 years ago, when we made the commitment to be the global driver of change and innovation in the AEC,” said Scarangello.

The firm’s vision led to creating a foundation that included a dedicated research and development group called CORE, and a tech incubator TTWiiN, that took intellectual property developed within the company’s ecosystem and accelerated those solutions to become stand-alone tech companies. As the company’s investment arm, TTWiiN IP was an early first-fund investor in proptech venture capital funds like MetaProp, giving Thornton Tomasetti exposure to the full landscape of real estate tech ideas.

To date, Thornton Tomasetti has spun out six tech companies, including OnScale, which was sold to Ansys last year; Konstru, which is partnering with Autodesk to drive and streamline the design process; and AI-powered T2D2, which reimagines asset management. Konstru and T2D2 were spun out just this year.

The firm also partnered with other industry innovation leaders to found AEC Angels, which evaluates, mentors and directly invests in startups, sharing best-in-class companies with corporate advisers who can rapidly bring those solutions to the marketplace.

Through TTWiiN IP and AEC Angels, the company invests in dozens of other promising technologies that will transform how buildings are designed, constructed and maintained.

“We are dedicated to educating our industry about tech adoption,” Scarangello said, “from creating the Council on Innovation and Best Practice at the New York Building Congress, to helping develop industry courses with the Roux Institute at Northeastern Universityon topics such as AI and data, to partnering with platforms such as BuiltWorlds.”