Photo Credit: Transcend
Data privacy infrastructure company Transcend has raised $3.95 million in seed funding led by Accel. The company enables users to have more control over data and make privacy policies more understandable.
CEO Ben Brook and CTO Michael Farrell became friends while studying computer science at Harvard, according to Business Insider. Brook told Business Insider that they flew out to Silicon Valley right before graduation to pitch the idea to venture capital firms and “got rejected like 18 times.”
Right when they were about to fly home, they received a call from another Harvard University graduate who committed to giving them $50,000. This was able to get the company revved up and it was able to get Transcend to the point where it was able to launch their product and raise the seed round. Brook also acknowledged that they did not know how to approach investors back then.
As data regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation are rolling out, data privacy will become even more important in the years to come. “Privacy was our greatest passion,” said Brook via Business Insider. “Furthermore, companies were also agonized by the technical challenges of managing their personal data.”
Brook pointed out that there are two major problems when it comes to dealing with privacy. The first problem is that people have terrible customer experience when it comes to privacy policies. And the other problem is that people should have the rights to their data. These problems have been addressed by building a better privacy interface for customers and offering an option to download data or opt out of the marketing and sale of personal information.
Brook added the privacy policies are written for lawyers by other lawyers — which gives an “impenetrable wall of legal text.” So Transcend presents this content in a TLDR format of what is being collected and what it is being used for.
“Companies globally are figuring out what it means to build for today’s privacy-conscious environment—and how developers, IT and legal navigate these complex issues while moving fast and delivering great experiences,” wrote Accel partner Vas Natarajan in a blog post. “Because if today’s public scrutiny is any measure, tomorrow’s startups face many data management and workflow challenges if they’re to stay compliant with forthcoming laws. We hear this from the fastest growing B2C companies, and based on Transcend’s customer list, large incumbents have woken up too.”
