Tantek 4D helps firms build a digital future

Founded by: Conor and Paul Tansey in 2018

Staff: 18

Funding: €600,000

Tantek 4D is opening a new headquarters in Sligo to facilitate its growth. The business, which already had its main office in the town, also has an office in Dublin. The new facilities will enable the business to hire up to 18 new staff.

Tantek 4D was founded in 2018 by brothers Conor and Paul Tansey. The company has 18 staff – 12 in Sligo and 6 in Dublin – and has raised €600,000 in funding.

The digital engineering company specialises in 3D laser scanning, digital twin development and other services.

“We assist companies that are moving into the digital era, companies that have existing facilities but no information on them and want to ensure they can get accurate and up-to-date data,” Conor Tansey told the Business Post.

Tantek produces 3D scans of buildings and develops models to ensure all the information required by the client is readily accessible. That, of course, only accounts for the three dimensions of height, breadth and depth. The fourth in Tantek 4D is time.

“It’s a 3D model plus time, so you can see how a building will change over time,” Conor Tansey said.

The idea for the business grew out of the Tansey brothers’ experience growing up around building sites – their father was a contractor – followed by their own frustrations with certain aspects of the sector.

“The construction industry was a slow adopter of digital technology. My brother Paul was a surveyor before this and had moved on to be a lecturer in what is now Atlantic Technological University in Sligo. He was teaching digital technologies to up and coming students, so we came up with the idea,” Conor Tansey said.

“It’s going well, and a lot of people have adopted what we do. We started out with just the two of us. We opened an office in Dublin in July 2021, and we’ve gone from strength to strength every year.”

The business became a client of Enterprise Ireland at the start of this year. Conor Tansey said the agency had provided valuable support to the company.

“They have provided us with contacts and assisted us with developing technologies in-house. They are giving us the guidance and expertise we need to do it,” he said.

“It helps when we go to clients and say we are an Enterprise Ireland client. It stands to us. As we expand worldwide, that will keep helping us as we keep going.”

The business has already expanded considerably internationally, and Tansey has high hopes for Tantek 4D.

“We have projects in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and the UK. We want to be worldwide and we can do that with some of our current clients,” he said.

“The US is our next target. Some of our clients are big pharmaceutical companies with presences there, Asia and all over the world. We’ve been in talks with them about using our services in the US and further afield.”