US-headquartered Transcend, a SaaS provider of generative design tools for critical infrastructure, has closed $20 million in Series B financing. The investment came from Autodesk, Inc., a leading software provider for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, product design, and media and entertainment industries. Also, existing investors HG Ventures, PureTerra, and Aspen Capital Group participated in the round, along with new investors Arosa Capital and Riverstone Holdings LLC.
Transcend will use the investment to accelerate its go-to-market strategy and product roadmap, further establishing its market leadership in generative design software for critical infrastructure. The investment will allow Transcend to continue to expand its customer base, which already includes many of the leading infrastructure players in the world such as Arcadis, Black and Veatch, Brookfield Asset Management, Anglian Water, Xylem, and Veolia.
“Autodesk feels strongly that new and better ways of designing and making can lead to a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable world for all. So we appreciate how Transcend is applying generative and outcome-based design to accelerate the development of sustainable critical infrastructure,” said Theo Agelopoulos, Vice President of AEC Design Strategy at Autodesk. “This investment and our collaboration with Transcend will help make advanced technologies more accessible to a wide range of asset owners, engineering firms, and equipment suppliers, enabling them to achieve better outcomes faster.”
“We look forward to this next phase of growth as we continue our mission to help engineers, utilities, and technology suppliers design innovative and sustainable critical infrastructure,” said Ari Raivetz, Founder and CEO of Transcend. “Autodesk’s commitment to our business as part of this Series B is a clear indicator that the world is moving towards the automation of preliminary design activities to develop resilient infrastructure for the future. That is good news for everyone, because we must move faster to build the next generation of green infrastructure if we are going to solve the climate crisis.”
“This investment is not only a catalyst for the growth of our business, but a catalyst for our customers as well. We will continue investing heavily in product features that our users can leverage to build a better world for all of us to live in,” said Adam Tank, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer at Transcend.
Automates critical infrastructure design
Transcend was founded by Ari Raivetz in 2019 in New Jersey. Its market-leading generative design software, the Transcend Design Generator (TDG), fully automates the conceptual and preliminary design of critical infrastructure assets, enabling asset owners to reduce design costs and timelines and prioritizes the incorporation of innovative and sustainable technologies.
TDG integrates process, mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering calculations and decisions to automatically generate complete and accurate preliminary engineering designs for a variety of water and power infrastructure projects. The outputs include 3D Building Information Modeling (BIM) models, carbon footprint estimates, equipment lists, operating and capital expenditure calculations, and many others.
In less than two years, designs generated through Transcend’s software have already positively impacted the lives of over 100 million people in 65 countries around the globe.
