Transcend Raises $3M Seed Round

Transcend Software Inc, a developer of generative design and automation SaaS tools for engineered infrastructure, has raised a $3M seed capital round. The transaction closed simultaneously with the completion of the spin-out of Transcend from Organica Water, a global provider of localized solutions for the treatment and recycling of wastewater.

The seed financing was led by Vespucci Partners, a European-based private equity firm, and existing Organica shareholders CITIC Capital, Idinvest Partners, International Finance Corporation, Invesco/WLR, Gamma Capital Partners, and XPV Water Partners, who all received shares in the spinout.

Founded in late 2019, Transcend works with EPC firms, real-estate developers, utilities, and technology OEM’s to automate their preliminary/conceptual engineering processes through the use of a cloud based platform called the Transcend Design Generator (“TDG”). TDG is unique to the infrastructure industry in that it automates many preliminary engineering tasks which are done manually today.

TDG automatically integrates decisions and calculations from each engineering discipline (process, mechanical, civil, architectural, electrical, control, and automation) to create a custom preliminary engineering design for any type of engineered infrastructure, including all process calculations, P&IDs, BIM models, CAD drawings, and a dozen or more engineering documents and drawings.

The software currently can produce designs for a variety of systems, including wastewater treatment facilities that use CAS, MBR, MBBR, Fixed Film, and a handful of others; water treatment facilities; alternative renewable energy power plants; and COVID-19 testing sites.

TDG was originally developed by some of the world’s leading experts in wastewater process modelling and architectural design and has been continuously updated and improved over the last decade.

Ari Raivetz, CEO of Transcend, said “We are thrilled to finally announce the spin out of Transcend from Organica and closing of our Series Seed round. This event marks the start of Transcend’s journey to transform the infrastructure industry by automating preliminary engineering & design. Like CRM and ERP before us, our goal is to automate this core business process in order to enhance the bottom line via cost savings (reducing hours spent on non-billable work) and revenue growth (offering clients more designs, with more detail, in less time).

More importantly, we also believe the manual approach to preliminary engineering limits the infrastructure industry’s ability to innovate fast enough to find impactful solutions for our environment and, at the same time, meet their client’s needs. Transcend’s software allows our clients to systematically assess new technologies and design approaches that help solve our climate crisis.”

Karoly Szanto of Vespucci Partners commented that “One of the primary reasons we invested in Transcend was because they are aimed squarely at solving the biggest challenge for innovation and acceptance of sustainable technologies around the world: the way engineering firms currently do business. Engineering firms and their counterparts spend far too much time focused on spreadsheets, document generation, and billable hours. They do the most they can with a limited amount of budget and time. Unfortunately this leaves little room for innovation and assessment of new advances in technology that can lead to a better, safer, and more sustainable world or all of us.

Transcend software enables engineering firms and their employees with the capability to automate the bulk of their preliminary/conceptual design work. This frees those engineers to spend time focused on sustainable alternatives evaluation, optioneering, and higher-level, complex thinking… which leads to better outcomes for their clients and the world at large.”

About Transcend

Transcend Software is a developer of generative design and automation SaaS tools for engineered infrastructure. Originally developed as a software tool to automate preliminary engineering for Organica Water, a company that sells a proprietary fixed-film wastewater treatment solution, the Transcend Design Generator (TDG) quickly expanded to include other wastewater technologies and other types of infrastructure. The company was set up a separate division in 2019 and completed a spin-out and Series Seed financing round in August 2020. Transcend counts many top 100 ENR water/wastewater firms as customers, and the software has designed over 6,500 wastewater treatment plants to date. TDG has also been used to generate rapid designs for COVID-19 testing facilities to help address the immediate need around the global pandemic.