We raised $25M to power data privacy inside every company
By Ben Brook
June 10, 2020•3 min read
We founded Transcend to make it simple for companies to give users control over their data. Today, we are proud to announce that we have raised $25 million in Series A funding to help further accelerate this mission.
Index Ventures led the round alongside Accel, with participation from South Park Commons, Goldman Sachs Board Member and former CISO Phil Venables, and Figma CEO Dylan Field. This investment validates the strength of our breakthrough technology, strategy, and team, and positions us to serve even more companies that want to both fix their broken data privacy processes and offer modern data privacy rights to their users.
To chart the path forward on modern data privacy, we have built a completely new data privacy infrastructure that integrates into a company’s databases and applications, automatically handling requests end-to-end with no human intervention required. Mike and I realized there was no easy way for consumers to access their personal data or for companies to easily provide access to that data. We saw an opportunity to build a data infrastructure that fully manages personal data, no matter where it’s stored—databases, SaaS tools, warehouses, vendors, and everywhere else. From receiving new Data Subject Requests (DSRs) to user authentication to response reports, Transcend can handle everything.
Today, we are defining a brighter future for data privacy, and improving how users will interact with their data going forward. Operating on one person’s personal data across hundreds of data systems is extremely complex, but it’s all beneath the hood with Transcend. We distilled this process into something that is so simple for companies to use, they can start offering their users data rights in an afternoon.
The data rights movement is growing and going global. With regulations like the GDPR in Europe and the CCPA in California, countries and states are rapidly adopting more stringent requirements around data privacy. These laws affect a vast majority of companies, who not only need to maintain compliance from a regulatory standpoint but also need to fulfill increasing numbers of user requests in an efficient and scalable way. Businesses that rely on manual, cumbersome, time-intensive internal processes that involve staff across nearly every business function are struggling to keep up.
According to EY/IAPP, data rights requests are perceived as the most difficult of all GDPR obligations. Now as people are moving more and more of their lives online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for data privacy is even more urgent and necessary and will continue to be so in the future. By powering data privacy inside of every company and creating simplicity, Transcend puts users everywhere in control of their data.
“In the wake of dozens of stories about privacy issues on video-conferencing sites, data breaches at retail companies and targeted election ads on Facebook, consumers are increasingly aware and concerned about how their personal data is used, which is pushing government regulators to step up. However, even companies who want to prioritize data privacy can struggle to fulfill requests efficiently and at scale. Transcend solves that problem, empowering users to take control of their data and businesses to stay compliant without any additional work. Privacy will define the next chapter in internet history, and Transcend is becoming a critical part of the story.” — Mark Goldberg, Partner at Index Ventures.
“Companies that touch user data must put systems in place to power end-user privacy rights. The best companies aren’t doing so just to tick a compliance box — they see privacy as an important investment in brand and community. Transcend is building a common service for every company to leverage, and they’re on their way to building an important new software category.” — Vas Natarajan, Partner at Accel.
“At Robinhood, we empower our customers to take greater ownership of their financial future, and we believe this extends to their personal information. Transcend’s data privacy infrastructure helps facilitate the way we give customers control over their data.” — Karthik Rangarajan, Head of Security at Robinhood.
We founded Transcend in 2017 and announced our $4 million seed round in 2019. We are proud to be coming out of beta-phase with a cohort of leading customers, including Robinhood and Patreon. To date, Transcend technology has processed over 20,000 access, erasure, and opt-out requests. We look forward to partnering with even more companies to grant data rights to all.
By Ben Brook