ESI Group provides virtual prototyping software that simulates a product's behavior during testing, manufacturing and real-life use.

[2] On May 30, 1978 the company presented the simulation of an accidental crash of a military fighter plane into a nuclear power plant at a Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI) meeting in Stuttgart.

[5] In July 2000 the company issued an initial public offering that generated 30 million Euros which was used to help fund product development.

[9] In December 2008 the company acquired the US CFD service provider Mindware Engineering Inc. with 70 people based in the United States, Europe and India.

[14] In October 2013 ESI acquired CyDesign Labs which specializes in combining 0D-1D simple design tools with advanced 3D simulation.

[19] Also in the field of sheet metal forming simulation, Atlas Tool used the same software to compensate for the effects of springback for high-strength and dual-phase steel for product geometry.

[20] In the aerospace sector, Vdot, a product acquired by the company in 2008, was one of four "strong points" found during a recently conducted AS9100 audit at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF).

Joe Costa, Mission Assurance Director said: "...achieving AS9100 certification in one year, starting from ground zero, was the gold ring..."[21] In a review of VA One, the company's vibro-acoustic simulation software, Desktop Engineering said: "VA One combines finite elements (FE), boundary elements (BEM), and statistical energy analysis (SEA) in a single model.