Augen focuses on one of the most valuable resources for humans: drinking water. The idea was born in 2018, when two chemical engineers and professors from the Rio Grande do Sul Federal University, Cezar Augusto da Rosa and Fabrício Butierres Santana, worked with the state’s sanitation agency, Corsan, on a sewage-treatment project. “That project was so successful that Corsan asked us to solve other sewage and water projects,” says Cezar. When the work grew beyond the scope permitted by the university’s hours – and Corsan required more agility – they officially founded Augen. They added another founder, Moisés Fernandes Borges, to carry out the remaining startup activities and help meet the growing demand for the automation of water-treatment processes. Overall, Augen solutions integrate, automatize and make available data for analysis and decision-making. 

Today, Augen is present in ten Brazilian cities, impacting more than 500,000 people through the treatment of 176 million liters of water daily, reducing the cost of the potability process by up to 30 percent. In terms of revenue, it aims to grow over 300 percent in 2023, investing in marketing and sales to reach a wider market. It will offer water-treatment services not only for larger stations but also for wells, which need analytical and chemical monitoring to guarantee water quality with IoT equipment. In Brazil, around 40 to 50 percent of the entire water volume is lost during treatment, and Augen aims to prevent that. 

The founding team comes from different engineering backgrounds, each one complementing each other’s knowledge and skills. “Fabrício and I were colleagues working at the same university department,” says Cezar. Moisés, a mechanical engineer with extensive experience in the oil and gas instrumentation and control market, was a personal friend. Today, Augen has a team of forty employees, half of them comprising the IT department. “We’re located within the Technological Park of the Federal University of Rio Grande, at FURG, and that helps us source new talent,” says Cezar. He notes that they still have some difficulties finding the right people for the team. Most team members currently at Augen were once their interns. “We invest a lot in them. The right internship program can captivate employees and introduce them to our culture, and maybe they’ll enjoy working in a technological development company.”