Ben Brook ‘13 Co-Founds Startup Company Transcend

Ben Brook met his co-founding partner, Michael Farrell, while they were both studying computer science at Harvard University. They shared a passion for data privacy and decided to start a company focused on making privacy policies better.

The purpose of their company, Transcend, is to take information from other companies and help people see how their data is being used and tracked. He explains to Business Insider that they got rejected around 18 times before an alumnus from Harvard wrote them a cheque for $50,000. This donation was enough to get their business off the ground and motivated them to keep working towards their dreams.

Good news came on Thursday, April 4 when they received $3.95 million seed round of funding led by venture capital firm Accel. “Things are about to be different in the privacy world,” Ben said in his interview with Business Insider. He described Transcend as a “one stop shop for consumers to understand what a company is doing with their personal data. Companies can plug the software applications they're using into Transcend, and Transcend will automatically gather together information about the application's data privacy.”

Ben and Michael found many problems in the world of privacy and are now successfully finding ways to give people a greater understanding of how their personal data is used. As two young entrepreneurs who started a company right out of college, they have already accomplished so much. Greenwood is proud of Ben and his partner and we can’t wait to see where Transcend will go.