CDH

What CDH does

CDH AG is a privately held German engineering and software company, founded in 1993 and headquartered in Ingolstadt, with additional offices in Stuttgart (Germany), Bloomfield Hills/Detroit (United States), and Yokohama (Japan). The company operates as a virtual engineering specialist, combining proprietary Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software, validated FE crash test and human body models, and engineering consultancy services. Its primary customer base is automotive OEMs and tier-1/tier-2 suppliers, with secondary exposure to aerospace, commercial vehicles, mechanical engineering, and semiconductor industries. CDH supports engineering workflows across vehicle safety, NVH, acoustic, and structural simulation, with deep integration into MSC Nastran, Simcenter/NX Nastran, LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH, Abaqus, ESI VPS, Altair Radioss, and Optistruct solver environments.

The product portfolio has two layers. The proprietary suite comprises nine solvers and modules: CDH/AMLS (frequency response and acoustic analysis), CDH/FastFRS (GPU-accelerated frequency response substructuring), CDH/OPTRAN (structural optimization), CDH/VAO (variation analysis), CDH/ACE (AI-reinforced autonomous CAE platform launched 2025), CDH/AUTOSPOT (spot weld modeling), CDH/AASI (advanced acoustic interface), CDH/RADOPT (RCS optimization), and CDH/TPA (transfer path analysis). The distribution layer covers GNS mbH (Animator4, Generator4), SIDACT (FEMZIP), ATD-MODELS GmbH (crash test dummies), Elemance (GHBMC virtual human body models, under a December 2025 exclusive distribution mandate for Europe and Japan), PHITEC (Q-Dummy pedestrian models), and Fraunhofer SCAI (multi-physics coupling).

The business model rests on three revenue streams: one-time software licensing plus maintenance for CDH-branded and partner products; one-time FE model licensing for crash test dummies, barriers, and human body models; and engineering consultancy services. All software and FE models are available via a 30-day free trial on the CDH website, lowering acquisition friction. Sales are direct enterprise engagements led by a named Head of Sales & Business Development (Armin Hackner), with regional support in Germany, the US, and Japan. CDH is led by Managing Directors Christian Pieper and Dr. René Visser, under the supervision of Supervisory Board Chairman Dr. Theodor Seitz. The company is privately held with no disclosed venture or growth-equity backing and no public revenue disclosure.

Name

CDH

Legal name

CDH AG

Website

https://cdh-ag.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1993

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

CDH AG provides proprietary CAE simulation software, validated FE crash test and human body models, and engineering consultancy for automotive, aerospace, commercial vehicle, and mechanical engineering clients across Europe, North America, and Japan.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Ingolstadt

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Software Licensing: CDH licenses proprietary CAE software products including CDH/AMLS, CDH/FastFRS, CDH/OPTRAN, CDH/VAO, CDH/RADOPT, CDH/TPA, CDH/AUTOSPOT, and CDH/ACE to engineering customers in automotive, aerospace, and industrial sectors. Revenue is generated through perpetual licenses and software maintenance/support contracts. The company distributes its own branded software as well as third-party products from Fraunhofer SCAI, GNS mbH, and SIDACT GmbH.
2. FE Model Distribution: CDH distributes Finite Element crash test dummy models from ATD-MODELS GmbH, Elemance (GHBMC models), GNS mbH, and PHITEC Ingegneria SRL for use in LS-DYNA, MSC Nastran, ESI VPS, and Altair Radioss solvers. These include anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) for vehicle safety testing compliant with Euro NCAP, US NCAP, C-NCAP, and IIHS standards.
3. Engineering Consultancy Services: CDH provides virtual product development engineering consultancy, technical support, and simulation engineering services to automotive manufacturers and research institutions across Europe and Japan.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

CDH AG develops, licenses, and supports proprietary CAE simulation software (CDH/AMLS, CDH/FastFRS, CDH/OPTRAN, CDH/VAO, CDH/ACE, CDH/AUTOSPOT, CDH/RADOPT, CDH/TPA, CDH/AASI) for crash safety, NVH, acoustic, and structural simulation, and distributes a curated catalog of validated finite element crash test dummies, human body models, and crash barriers from partners including GNS mbH, SIDACT GmbH, ATD-MODELS GmbH, PHITEC, Elemance, and Fraunhofer SCAI. The company also delivers engineering consultancy and technical support services for virtual product development in the automotive, aerospace, commercial vehicle, mechanical engineering, and semiconductor industries.

Product overview

CDH AG offers a comprehensive CAE software portfolio combining proprietary tools with partner products for virtual product development and crash safety simulation. The core proprietary suite includes CDH/AMLS and CDH/FastFRS for frequency response and acoustic analysis with Nastran solvers, CDH/OPTRAN for structural optimization, CDH/VAO for variation analysis, CDH/ACE as an AI-reinforced autonomous CAE platform, and CDH/AUTOSPOT for spot weld optimization. The portfolio extends through partnerships with GNS mbH (Animator4 pre-processor and Generator4 post-processor), SIDACT (FEMZIP compression), ATD-MODELS (crash test dummies), Elemance (GHBMC virtual human body models), PHITEC (Q-Dummy pedestrian models), and Fraunhofer SCAI (multi-physics coupling tools). Together, these products address automotive safety, NVH, acoustics, and crash simulation across the automotive, aerospace, and commercial vehicle industries.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• CDH/ACE: AI-reinforced CAE platform that combines physics-based FE modeling and machine learning for automated simulation workflows, self-learning experiments, and predictive models.
• CDH/AMLS
• CDH/AutoSPOT
• CDH/FASTFRS
• CDH/OPTRAN
• CDH/RADOPT
• CDH/TPA
• CDH/VAO

Products and services

• CDH/AMLS Proprietary Advanced Modal Large Scale (AMLS) software for high-performance frequency response and acoustic analysis, integrated with MSC Nastran and Simcenter/NX Nastran solvers. Features GPU acceleration (Nvidia A100/H100/H200 with 80GB+ memory) for large-scale analyses with many modes, supporting versions 2021.4 through 2025.2. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in automotive, aerospace, and high-tech industries.
• CDH/FastFRS Proprietary Fast Frequency Response Solver (FastFRS) for rapid frequency response analysis, working with MSC Nastran and NX Nastran. Features GPU acceleration for very large models and analyses with many modes, supporting plastic parts and high-frequency simulations. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in the automotive and aerospace sectors.
• CDH/OPTRAN Proprietary Optimization Transfer (OPTRAN) software for structural optimization, sensitivity analysis, and acoustic transmission loss prediction, supporting MSC Nastran (versions 2018.2-2025.2) and Simcenter/NX Nastran. Includes Element Sensitivity calculations and ADSTIFF for averaged dynamic stiffness. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers.
• CDH/VAO Proprietary Variation Analysis and Optimization (VAO) tool for statistical variation analysis and structural displacements in local coordinate systems, supporting multiple submodels and PSDF computation for Nastran random analysis. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in automotive and mechanical engineering.
• CDH/ACE Proprietary AI-reinforced Autonomous Computational Experiments (ACE) platform that combines physics-based FE modeling with machine learning to automate simulation workflows, perform self-learning experiments, and build predictive models for faster, smarter computational engineering. Optimized for NVH and vibration/acoustics tasks. Supports Optistruct as a FEM solver (version 2029+). Sold to enterprise CAE engineers.
• CDH/AUTOSPOT Proprietary software for automatic spot weld modeling and optimization in crash simulations. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers performing vehicle crash safety analysis.
• CDH/RADOPT Proprietary radiation optimization software for acoustic applications and Radar Cross Section (RCS) optimization for stealth technology. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in aerospace and defense.
• CDH/TPA Proprietary Transfer Path Analysis (TPA) software for analyzing noise and vibration transmission paths in NVH applications. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in the automotive industry.
• CDH/AASI (Advanced Acoustic Solver Interface) Proprietary Advanced Acoustic Solver Interface providing advanced features for acoustic simulations including CDH/AASI-PEM for porous elastic materials, CDH/AASI-FastPPF for panel participation factors (up to 10x faster than MSC Nastran), and CDH/AASI-MonteCarlo for non-parametric Monte-Carlo simulations. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in automotive and aerospace.
• GNS Animator4 FEM post-processor from GNS mbH distributed by CDH, for visualization and analysis of LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH, Abaqus, and Radioss simulation results. Supports complex result types, video generation, and multiple solver formats including R15 and R16 LS-DYNA formats and Abaqus 2026. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in the automotive crash safety domain.
• GNS Generator4 FEM pre-processor from GNS mbH distributed by CDH, for crash safety model preparation, supporting LS-DYNA and PAM-CRASH (version 2024) with features including dummy positioning, FMH, FMVSS201, Euro NCAP, and US NCAP safety regulations. Supports CATIA V5 import. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers in automotive crash safety.
• FEMZIP / FEMZIP-L File compression tool from SIDACT GmbH distributed by CDH for LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH, and Abaqus result files, providing up to 90% compression ratio with significant acceleration in compression (x3) and decompression (x2) in version 17.1.1119. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers managing large simulation datasets.
• GHBMC Virtual Human Body Models Gold-standard Finite Element virtual human body models from the Global Human Body Models Consortium, distributed by CDH AG (via the Elemance strategic partnership in Europe and Japan). Includes the M50 model certified by Euro NCAP for frontal impact simulations under CP 550/551 protocols. Available for LS-DYNA, ESI VPS, and Altair Radioss solvers. Sold to automotive OEMs, tier-1 suppliers, and automotive research institutions for occupant safety and crashworthiness simulation.
• ATD-MODELS Crash Test Dummies Finite Element crash test dummy models from ATD-MODELS GmbH distributed globally by CDH AG, including the Hybrid III family (H350, H395, H305, H303, H306), THOR-50M (NHTSA and Euro NCAP versions), SID2S, aPLI, fPLI pedestrian legform impactors, PH series pedestrian headform impactors (PH35, PH45), and T350 variants. Supports Euro NCAP, US NCAP, and C-NCAP compliance. Sold to automotive OEMs, tier-1 suppliers, and crash safety testing organizations.
• GNS Crash Barrier Models Crash barrier Finite Element models from GNS mbH distributed by CDH, including AC-MDB for CAERI-compliant side impact testing, ODB, MPDB, AE-MDB, MDB, FWDB, IIHS barrier, NHTSA OMDB, SC-MDB, and GNS Advanced 2000 crash barrier and vehicle models. Available for LS-DYNA simulations. Sold to automotive OEMs and crash safety testing organizations.
• PHITEC Q-Dummy Package Pedestrian dummy Finite Element models from PHITEC Ingegneria SRL distributed by CDH, including Q0, Q1, Q1.5, Q3, Q6, Q6s, Q10B, Q10B-SK, Q10B+APTS, Q10C, and Q10C+APTS variants, developed in response to Euro NCAP 2020 safety regulations. Supported solvers include ANSYS LS-DYNA, ESI VPS PAM-CRASH, and Altair Radioss, with pre-processing support for Beta CAE Systems ANSA, Oasys PRIMER, ANSYS LS-PrePost, and Altair HyperMesh. Hardware-validated against component tests. Sold to automotive OEMs and crash safety testing organizations.
• Fraunhofer SCAI Software Coupling and co-simulation software from Fraunhofer SCAI distributed by CDH, including MODELCOMPARE, MPCCI FSIMAPPER, MPCCI MAPPER, SIMCOMPARE, and SIMEXPLORE for multi-physics simulation coupling and integration workflows. Sold to enterprise CAE engineers and research institutions.
• Engineering Consultancy Services Virtual product development engineering consultancy, technical support, and simulation engineering services delivered to automotive manufacturers and research institutions across Europe and Japan. Services span vehicle safety, NVH, powertrain, model creation, aerospace, commercial vehicles, mechanical engineering, and semiconductor sectors. Sold to enterprise automotive OEMs, tier suppliers, and research institutions.

Quantifiable outcome

• CDH/AASI-FastPPF delivers up to 10x reduced computation time compared to standard MSC Nastran for panel participation factors
• +3 more outcomes

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration13 records

AI capability2 records

Feature9 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Elemance, LLCcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 3 December 2025Elemance partnered with CDH AG to serve as exclusive distributor for GHBMC (Global Human Body Models Consortium) virtual human body models in Europe and Japan. CDH leverages its established commercial presence and technical support capabilities to provide localized in-language engineering support, reducing onboarding friction and accelerating integration timelines. Elemance develops and licenses the gold-standard finite element human body models for crash safety technology and virtual vehicle development.
• Eco Atlantic Oil & GasminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 3 December 2025CDH's Oil & Gas sector team advised Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas on a strategic partnership with Navitas, formalized through binding Framework and Option Agreements. Navitas gained farm-in rights to Eco's Orinduik Block offshore Guyana and Block 1 CBK offshore South Africa. The transaction highlights CDH's capability to execute complex cross-border upstream transactions in the oil & gas sector.
• Navitas (through Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas advisory)minorOthers · 3 December 2025CDH advised on the strategic partnership between Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas and Navitas, providing transaction advisory expertise for cross-border upstream oil & gas deals.
• ATD-MODELS GmbHcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCDH AG distributes ATD-MODELS GmbH's finite element crash test dummy models globally, including THOR-50M, Hybrid III family (H350, H395, H305, H303, H306), SID2S, aPLI, fPLI, pedestrian headform impactors (PH35, PH45), and T350 variants for Euro NCAP, US NCAP, and C-NCAP compliance.
• GNS mbHcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCDH AG distributes GNS mbH's FE models including MDB, MPDB, ODB, AE-MDB, AC-MDB, FWDB, IIHS, NHTSA OMDB, SC-MDB, and GNS Advanced 2000 crash barrier and vehicle models. CDH also distributes GNS Generator4 and Animator4 software globally.
• Fraunhofer SCAIcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCDH AG distributes Fraunhofer SCAI software products including MODELCOMPARE, MPCCI FSIMAPPER, MPCCI MAPPER, SIMCOMPARE, and SIMEXPLORE for co-simulation and integration workflows.
• SIDACT GmbHcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCDH AG distributes SIDACT GmbH's FEMZIP compression software (FEMZIP and FEMZIP-L) for efficient storage and processing of large FE simulation result files, supporting LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH, Abaqus, and other solvers.
• PHITEC Ingegneria SRLcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCDH AG distributes PHITEC's Q-Dummy Package FE models (Q0, Q1, Q1.5, Q3, Q6, Q6s, Q10B, Q10B-SK, Q10B+APTS, Q10C, Q10C+APTS) developed in response to Euro NCAP 2020 safety regulations. Supported solvers include ANSYS LS-DYNA, ESI VPS PAM-CRASH, and Altair Radioss.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Dassault Systèmes (SIMULIA): SIMULIA Abaqus and 3DEXPERIENCE platform compete in structural and crash simulation, often chosen by OEMs for full digital-twin workflows. SIMULIA overlaps with CDH's solver ecosystem integrations and competes for similar enterprise budgets.
• Altair Engineering: Altair offers a broad CAE platform (HyperWorks, OptiStruct, Radioss) covering crash, NVH, and structural optimization — the same workflows CDH targets. It is a much larger incumbent with integrated solver stack, competing head-on with CDH/OPTRAN and CDH/AMLS for OEM engineering budgets.
• ANSYS: ANSYS Mechanical, LS-DYNA, and Ansys Sound provide structural, crash, and acoustic simulation across automotive and aerospace. As the broadest CAE platform with significant R&D investment in AI-assisted simulation, ANSYS is the primary competitive threat to CDH/ACE's ML-reinforced positioning.
• Siemens Digital Industries Software (Simcenter): Siemens Simcenter (including NX Nastran, LMS acoustic/NVH solvers, and StarCCM+) competes directly with CDH's solver portfolio and bundles platform-wide solutions to automotive and aerospace OEMs. Acquisition of LMS made Siemens a direct competitor in NVH and acoustic simulation.
• ESI Group (Keysight Technologies): ESI Group (now part of Keysight) historically competed with VPS/PAM-CRASH solvers for crash and forming simulation. CDH's products integrate with ESI VPS, but ESI remains a peer in crash and occupant safety simulation workflows at OEMs.

Emerging players

• PHITEC Ingegneria: PHITEC develops the Q-Dummy pedestrian FE model package for Euro NCAP 2020 compliance, distributed by CDH. As partner and peer, PHITEC competes in pedestrian and occupant dummy FE models alongside ATD-MODELS and Elemance.
• GNS mbH: GNS mbH develops the Animator4 and Generator4 pre/post-processors as well as crash barrier FE models that CDH distributes. As both partner and product peer, GNS competes with BETA CAE and Oasys in the same workflow tool layer.
• ATD-MODELS GmbH: ATD-MODELS produces the THOR, Hybrid III, and pedestrian headform FE dummy models that CDH distributes globally. As partner and product peer, ATD-MODELS competes with PHITEC and Elemance in certified dummy models for crash safety regulation.
• Elemance, LLC: Elemance develops and licenses the GHBMC virtual human body models that CDH distributes in Europe and Japan. As both partner and product peer, Elemance is comparable to ATD-MODELS and PHITEC in the validated FE dummy/HBM space.

Direct peers

• BETA CAE Systems: BETA CAE (ANSA pre-processor and META post-processor) is a direct competitor in crash and safety simulation pre/post-processing. CDH distributes GNS Animator4/Generator4 as an alternative, making BETA CAE the closest peer in workflow tooling.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xxing.com/pages/cdh
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@cdhag5440
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cdh-ag
• Facebookfacebook.com/CDHAG

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Subsidiaries2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about CDH