The precursor to Engineering Fluid Dynamics (EFD) was originally developed by the Russian Scientific Research Institute of Thermal Processes headed up by Dr Gennady Dumnov. Domnov and his team specialized in combustion and gas dynamics and were involved, inter alia, in the development of an "altitude compensating" nozzle.

Roland Feldhinkel, previous MD of SolidTeam GmbH, (CAD/CAE solution provider) and Dr Ivo Weinhold, who previously worked for Fluid Dynamics International and Fluent, saw an opportunity in the market to provide a single CFD package that would be used by the engineer in all aspects of the design process.

When the Russian project ended, Dumnov and Dr Alexander Sobachkin partnered with Feldhinkel and Weinhold to form NIKA. The company chronology is shown to the left. The major differences are in the geometry of the grid (rectangular elements) that captures the geometry of the part with partial cells [link to definition: A partial cell is a computational mesh cell lying at the solid/fluid interface, partly in a fluid region and partly in a solid region.] rather than meshing (e.g. with tetrahedral elements) the solid of the fluid region.