Airovant seems to be value enhancing (complimentary as Pointerra has the platform, Airovant has an analytics-based solution approach, also Pointerra is 3D focussed, Airovant more 2D focussed) but has not been price enhancing – herein lies the opportunity?
Airovant provides customer ‘solutions’ via data analysis and insights for risk, compliance, and optimisation of physical infrastructure.
Pointerra has had 3 broad strategies historically – 1) 3D Data storage and retrieval, 2) 3D Data analytics, and 3) 3D Data Marketplace.
From inception, the 3DP platform appears to have been optimised for data storage & retrieval, being cloud native. The ‘3D data marketplace’ was and still seems to be a longer-term aspiration. So the analytics has likely been a recent area of focus for Pointerra – most probably led by customer feedback. So Airovant seems to be a ‘buy vs build’ solution to plug this analytics value add gap.
This is probably why Ian Olson refers to Airovant as being ‘solution focussed’. It should allow the combined entity to be more value enhancing for clients than just a 3D data storage and retrieval facility.
If this is correct, it’s a vertical integration of sorts that takes the data mining (client data source) to storage and retrieval (Pointerra today) to data processing into information (using Airovant functionality) to solve bigger customer problems.
If this works, it is likely to lead to broader use cases and deeper customer penetration / stickiness if the analytics component can be better delivered by Pointerra.
Risks - I would expect some potentially significant integration risk because: 1) Pointerra haven't done an acquisition before and 2) their complementary nature (2D solutions vs 3D platform) might not be very plug and play.
Disc: Held
