The company's software serves the building, plant, civil, and geospatial markets in the areas of architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations.

[12] In November 2016, German-based Siemens announced it would pay about $76 million for a minority stake in Bentley, as well as invest in developing joint software with it.

[16] On June 18, 1997, Bentley acquired IdeaGraphix, a developer of MicroStation-based application software for architecture, engineering, and facilities management.

[28] In early 2008, Bentley acquired Hevacomp, Ltd.,[29] LEAP Software, Inc.,[30] the promis•e product line from ECT International,[31] and Common Point for mainstream construction simulation.

[39] Also that year it acquired Canadian-based Ivara,[40] the Microprotol pressure vessel design and analysis software from EuResearch,[41] and SpecWave.

[45] Later that year, it acquired SITEOPS, optimization software for enhanced land development site design, from Blueridge Analytics.

[50] On January 23, 2018, Bentley acquired S-Cube Futuretech Pvt Ltd. to expand its offerings specific to the concrete engineering design and documentation software users in India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

[69] In 2023, Bentley acquired Salt Lake City, Utah-based Blyncsy, a provider of breakthrough artificial intelligence services for departments of transportation to support operations and maintenance activities.

[citation needed] Since 2010, Bentley annually published a ranking of the top owners of infrastructure from both the public and private sectors.