After a long career in the Aras environment, Leon Lauritsen knows most of the company’s strengths – this is how he describes what is on the table:
”I have been part of the Aras community for over 20 years – first at Minerva as a partner and then with Aras after Minerva was acquired in 2022. Aras was founded on a disruptive culture and we talk about five elements of the ’Aras effect’ that summarize what makes us unique:
The Digital Thread: PLM must be built on a solid product infrastructure for digital threads to maximize the return on data assets
Openness: Digital threads and PLM applications must be integrated openly with the rest of the digital ecosystem – even with competing PLM solutions
Adaptability: PLM applications must be flexible to respond to change – and PLM software must be able to adapt
Scalability: Organizations should have a clear path to adopt scalable secure cloud infrastructure when it is meaningful to them.
Community: Ara’s community is unique in that our customers and partners actually like us. We engage openly with them and rely on their collaboration to set our priorities.”
Expandable and open digital thread
These elements are, argues Lauritsen, of utmost importance for the way forward:
”Yes, it is. The board and management team recognize that we have a unique opportunity to change the PLM industry, not least at a time when the world is looking forward to integrating AI into all aspects of business operations. Aras Innovator’s unique architecture, based on an open and extensible digital thread distributed on a modern SaaS infrastructure, gives us the opportunity to leverage AI more freely than our traditional competitors. As we act aggressively to capture this opportunity, it was decided that a new perspective on the business would help us accelerate here.
According to the latest evaluation and analysis by the analyst Forrester in their ”Wave”, Aras Innovator is, from a technological perspective, one of the stronger, if not the strongest, in the market. Where is the company aiming here? There is of course no doubt that AI plays an important role.
”Right, AI is a transformative force for modern companies and it will completely redefine how organizations handle product development and surrounding business processes. New AI services or agents will emerge from many sources; Aras will of course introduce AI innovations, Microsoft will introduce new AI services, research organizations, startups, and our customers will build their own AI services – the dynamics are incredibly vibrant right now. But regardless of where the AI innovations come from, the evolution requires customized AI data, high-quality, and consistently designed data. Aras is perfectly positioned to provide controlled access to data for AI services, but also to establish control and observability for product organizations to safely deploy and manage AI in PLM at scale. We are not stopping there, but will in the near future show how AI can go even further thanks to Aras’ unique architecture,” says Aras’ new CEO.
”2025 is on track to be our best year yet”
In PLM&ERP News’ latest interview with Lauritsen, he pointed to good sales figures that indicate that Aras is growing faster than the PLM market on average.
According to analyst CIMdata’s latest data, Aras brought in around $200 million last year, 2024. How the figures developed in 2025 is unclear, as the privately held company does not publicly disclose what the figures look like. However, in a previous PLM&ERP News interview (August 15, 2025), Lauritsen stated that, ”The analyst estimates that exist are reflective.” Potentially, the fact that a CEO chooses to step down could be an effect of declining sales figures, but Lauritsen firmly rejects this.
“Absolutely – it is definitely not the case,” he says. “Aras continues to grow more than twice as fast as the broader PLM market, and we continue to increase our profitability while reinvesting heavily in R&D.”
So, how has the company developed in 2025 from a commercial perspective?
“We are well on our way to seeing 2025 as our most successful financial year in the company’s history. We continue to successfully compete for new business against legacy PLM vendors, as well as expanding business within our established enterprise customers. We do not comment on specific deals, but I would like to point out the customers who have spoken publicly at our community events in 2025, including Honda, Microsoft, CERN, Ocado, Denso and Red Bull.
Are there any weaker points that you want to address?
“I wouldn’t call them weaker points, but we will invest heavily in a few specific areas:
1. The fight for the best technical talent;
2. Expanding our reach in wider Asia through partnerships”
Overall, what improvements can you see that would strengthen Aras even more?
“My focus will be to fully embrace the disruptive spirit on which the company was founded, leverage the solid corporate foundation built over the past four years, and emerge as the true industry,” concludes Leon Lauritsen.
