ACRi

What ACRi does

ACRi (Analytic & Computational Research Inc.) is a privately held, founder-led computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software company founded in 1979 by Dr. Akshai Runchal, a co-inventor of the Finite Volume Method. Headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Nice (France) and McLeod Ganj and Bangalore (India), the company develops and licenses a suite of four specialized solvers: PORFLOW (groundwater flow, contaminant transport, nuclear waste repository modeling, originally released in 1976 as GWTHERM), ANSWER (general-purpose CFD for fluid flow, heat transfer, and chemical reactions, in continuous development since 1970), TIDAL (hydrodynamics and water quality in large water bodies, including tsunami modeling), and RADM (atmospheric pollutant dispersion). The products share common interfaces including the FREEFORM command language and CFDStudio IDE and rely on proprietary multi-phase flow, geochemistry, and turbulence modeling capabilities validated against decades of field data.

ACRi monetizes primarily through quote-based, multi-year enterprise software licensing combined with installation, training, and technical support services; pricing is opaque and negotiated directly via [email protected]. The company serves a narrow set of mission-critical use cases — nuclear waste repository safety assessment (Andra France for over 20 years, Savannah River National Laboratory, NPCIL India, BARC India, ICN Romania), groundwater contamination litigation and remediation, oil recovery from fractured reservoirs (JVPC with Golder Associates), accidental subsurface gas release modeling (Gaz de France), and coastal/tsunami hazard assessment — for clients that include government agencies, research institutions, and Fortune 500 industrial firms across more than 20 countries. Over 200 clients have been served cumulatively.

Go-to-market is enterprise field sales with dedicated sales and technical support contacts, supplemented by a content-marketing presence (technical downloads, case studies, a Udemy CFD course) and a non-profit academic wing, the CFD Virtual Reality Institute (CFDVRi, founded 2011), that conducts collaborative research (including Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences-funded projects with BARC) and serves as a talent and community pipeline. Distribution is entirely direct; no app, API, or SDK is offered. ACRi operates as a small (11–50 employees), profitable, founder-controlled entity with no disclosed external equity, no parent company, and one wholly-owned Indian subsidiary (ACRi Infotech Private Limited).

Name

ACRi

Legal name

Analytic & Computational Research Inc.

Website

https://acricfd.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1979

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

ACRi develops and licenses four specialized CFD solvers — PORFLOW, ANSWER, TIDAL, and RADM — serving over 200 government, research, and Fortune 500 clients across 20 countries in nuclear waste, groundwater, atmospheric, and coastal hydrodynamic applications.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Los Angeles

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Software Licensing: ACRi licenses its CFD software products (PORFLOW, ANSWER, TIDAL, RADM) to clients. Based on testimonials mentioning software purchases, the model appears to include perpetual or term-based licenses. The company provides installation, training, and technical support as part of the offering.
2. Professional Services: Training, technical support, consulting, and custom simulation services are provided. Testimonials mention installation, training, troubleshooting, and technical query support as valued services.
3. Technical Documentation: Technical documentation and manuals are available for free download and study, indicating the company may also derive value from knowledge services and documentation provision.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

ACRi develops and licenses specialized Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software built on the Finite Volume Method. Its product suite — PORFLOW® (groundwater flow, contaminant transport, nuclear waste management), ANSWER® (general-purpose CFD solver for fluid flow, heat transfer, combustion, turbulence), TIDAL® (hydrodynamics and water quality in coastal water bodies), and RADM™ (atmospheric dispersion) — is sold to Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and research organizations worldwide. The company also provides installation, training, technical support, and consulting services.

Product overview

ACRi offers a suite of four specialized Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software products: PORFLOW® for groundwater flow and contaminant transport, ANSWER® as a general-purpose CFD solver, TIDAL® for hydrodynamics and water quality in large water bodies, and RADM™ for atmospheric pollution dispersion. These tools address critical environmental and industrial challenges including groundwater contamination, air pollution, nuclear waste management, and coastal water dynamics. The products share common interfaces (FREEFORM™ language and CFDStudio™ for ANSWER) and are trusted by over 200 clients worldwide including Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• PORFLOW®: Industry-leading software for groundwater flow, contaminant transport, and nuclear waste management modeling. Originally released in 1976 as GWTHERM, it has been used for over 45 years in applications including groundwater contamination, nuclear waste management, and oil recovery.
• ANSWER®
• TIDAL®
• RADM™
• CFD Virtual Reality Institute (CFDVRi)

Products and services

• PORFLOW® Industry-leading software for modeling groundwater flow, contaminant transport, and nuclear waste management. It supports coupled flow, heat transfer, and chemical transport in complex geometry aquifers with multiphase flow capabilities, structured/unstructured grids, radioactive decay simulation, geochemistry models, and fractured media simulation. Targeted at government agencies, nuclear safety bodies, oil and gas firms, and environmental consulting organizations.
• ANSWER® Versatile, general-purpose CFD solver for simulating fluid flow, heat transfer, and chemical transport in complex 3D geometries. Employs finite volume technique for Navier-Stokes and general transport equations including chemical reactions, combustion, and turbulence. Features FREEFORM™ English-like interface and CFDStudio™ integrated development environment. Targeted at engineers and researchers requiring flexible CFD with advanced turbulence models and gridless computing.
• TIDAL® Advanced software for hydrodynamics and water quality simulations in large-scale water bodies including bays, estuaries, rivers, lakes, and coastal regions. Integrates currents, tides, wind effects, gravitational and Coriolis forces, bathymetry, friction, sources/sinks, and chemical reactions with dynamic flooding and draining capabilities for coastal lowlands. Targeted at coastal management, environmental agencies, and emergency planning organizations.
• RADM™ Random-Walk model for simulation of dispersion processes in turbulent fluids, particularly for air pollution studies. Employs stochastic approach for transport equations with support for chemical reactions, radioactive decay, complex terrain, arbitrary wind fields and inversion conditions, and single or multiple fixed/mobile/area sources. Targeted at environmental agencies, atmospheric researchers, and industrial facilities requiring air quality impact assessments.

Quantifiable outcome

• Gas reach time prediction within approximately 48 hours for underground pipe leak scenarios
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature15 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• CFD Virtual Reality Institute (CFDVRi)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounded by Dr. Akshai Runchal in 2011 as a non-profit to advance CFD education, training, and research. The institute serves as ACRi's academic wing, with CFDVRi Dharamshala (associated with ACRi Infotech Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore) conducting collaborative projects funded by Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences.
• Golder AssociatesminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborated with ACRi on oil recovery study for Japan Vietnamese Petroleum Company. Golder used fracture simulation based on field data while ACRi provided PORFLOW for reservoir simulation. This was a joint project where Golder approached ACRi because no other software could simulate the complex fracture structure.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Hydronumerics: Hydronumerics provides open-source and commercial CFD software for hydrodynamics, water quality, and coastal modeling, overlapping with ACRi's TIDAL product. Smaller in scale and geographic reach, focused on the Australian and Asia-Pacific market.
• OpenFOAM Foundation: OpenFOAM is an open-source CFD toolkit widely used in academic and industrial research, including porous media and environmental flows. It represents a free, customizable alternative to ACRi's PORFLOW and ANSWER, particularly attractive to research organizations and budget-constrained government labs.

Broad incumbents

• Siemens (Simcenter STAR-CCM+): Siemens Digital Industries Software offers STAR-CCM+ for CFD and multiphysics simulation across aerospace, automotive, and energy. It is a broad incumbent with overlapping CFD capabilities though less focused on porous media and nuclear waste applications.
• Dassault Systèmes (SIMULIA): Dassault Systèmes offers SIMULIA for multiphysics simulation including fluids via XFlow. Comparable as a broad incumbent with platform-level CFD capability competing for the same enterprise simulation budgets.
• ANSYS: ANSYS is the dominant commercial CFD/simulation platform (Fluent, CFX) used across industrial and environmental engineering. It overlaps with ACRi's general-purpose ANSWER solver but operates as a broad multi-physics incumbent rather than a niche environmental specialist.

Direct peers

• Numeca: Numeca specializes in CFD and optimization software for turbomachinery and multiphysics applications. It is comparable to ACRi's ANSWER as a specialized, mid-sized CFD software vendor serving industrial engineering customers.
• ESI Group: ESI Group delivers industrial simulation software for manufacturing and materials, with some overlap in CFD-driven environmental and process modeling. Comparable as a mid-sized niche simulation vendor serving enterprise and government clients.
• FLOW-3D: FLOW-3D provides specialized CFD software for free-surface flows, hydraulics, and environmental applications. It is directly comparable to ACRi's TIDAL for water/environmental hydrodynamics, though FLOW-3D's focus leans more toward industrial hydraulics than nuclear/groundwater niche.
• COMSOL: COMSOL provides a multiphysics simulation platform with modules for CFD, porous media flow, and transport phenomena. It directly competes with ACRi's ANSWER and PORFLOW for engineering and environmental simulation use cases, with a broader but less domain-specialized product.

Others

• Tecplot: Tecplot provides CFD visualization and post-processing tools used alongside simulation solvers. It is adjacent to ACRi rather than directly competing, but commonly co-deploys with CFD codes in the same engineering workflows.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@analyticcomputationalresea8970
• LinkedInin.linkedin.com/company/acri-infotech-pvt-ltd

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Subsidiaries1 record

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 ACRi