Catenda

Open is who we are.

We're a small, standards-native team building the open common data environment for the people who design, build and run the built environment. Sixteen years in, we still bet on one thing: open standards.

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The Catenda team wearing hi-vis vests and Catenda hard hats on a snowy rooftop with Cologne Cathedral in the background
2009
Founded in Oslo
6
Offices across Europe and Japan
22 000+
Professionals using Catenda
3500+
Projects running on the platform

Born out of research. Built inside the standard.

Catenda was founded in 2009 as a spin-off from SINTEF, the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia. We did not start from a sales target. We started from a research question: what would construction look like if the data was actually open?

The company was founded inside buildingSMART, the body behind IFC and the open BIM standards the industry runs on. That is not a marketing line. It is where the people and the conviction came from, and it is why openness is not a feature we added later.

Sixteen years on, the bet still holds. Closed formats lock your project inside one vendor. Open formats keep it yours. We have spent the whole time on the harder, slower side of that line, and we intend to stay there.

The full story lives on The Open Way
The five Catenda co-founders standing together on a sunny lawn in 2009, the year the company was founded

The people behind the open way.

A standards-native team of engineers, BIM specialists and support people who came to construction software on purpose. Real faces, real names, coming here soon.

The full Catenda team gathered outdoors in a snowy birch forest, wearing matching black jackets and colourful winter hats
Large group of Catenda team members in yellow hi-vis vests listening to a briefing at a snowy construction site under blue sky
Two Catenda team members laughing and talking in an office with a green accent wall covered in sticky notes
Catenda team celebrating at a candlelit dinner inside a cosy cabin with green wooden walls, a man in a grey suit applauding
Aerial drone view of the Catenda team forming an arrow shape on snow, arms raised, with colourful international flags laid out in front of them
Three Catenda team members in yellow hi-vis vests and hard hats at a snowy construction site

Six cities, one source of truth.

Catenda is European at its core and global where the work is. Six offices keep us close to the standards bodies, the markets and the projects we support.

Oslo

Norway

Drammensveien 288, 0283 Oslo, Norway

Paris

France

12 Av. d'Italie, 75013 Paris, France

Copenhagen

Denmark

Frederiksborggade 15, 1358 Copenhagen, Denmark

Tokyo

Japan

Akasaka K-Tower 4F, 1-2-7 Motoakasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0051, Japan

Weesp (Amsterdam)

Netherlands

Stationsplein 28, 1382 AD Weesp (Amsterdam), Netherlands

Karlsruhe

Germany

Riefstahlstraße 8, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany

Meet us in person.

We run our own events: workshops, talks and openBIM sessions for the people doing the work. It is the part of the open way that happens face to face.

See upcoming events
  • Workshops
  • openBIM talks
  • Community sessions

The open way is easier to show than to explain.

See what we built.

Bring your IFC. That's it.

Get startedOr read The Open Way