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Athion
Techstars '25Chesterfield, US · Founded 2024 · 5 employees on LinkedIn · 2 known investors
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Onyx 360 develops 3D simulation and digital environment software for operators to safely test ideas, automate processes, and train on critical operations.
Also known as Project Playground
Investors · 2
How we know: REFASHIOND Ventures's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Athion develops software positioned as an "engineering system of record" for process manufacturing industries, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, oil and gas, pulp and paper, food and beverage, and metals and mining. The product ingests engineering documentation — notably P&IDs (piping and instrumentation diagrams), spreadsheets and other design documents — and converts it into a single connected, queryable design model that captures equipment, connections and surrounding context.
The platform is organized around three stated capabilities: an engineering system of record that consolidates design data scattered across drawings and documents; "design acceptance testing," which allows a design to be stress-tested before freeze in the same spirit as factory acceptance testing of control panels; and change propagation, in which the design is versioned and a change to one element (for example, a vessel) updates dependent artifacts such as equipment lists and specifications, in both directions across downstream systems. Company materials describe the goal as letting operators test a change during design and then push it out to the people, products and processes that depend on it, with claimed outcomes of less rework, more predictable schedules and smoother startups.
Related descriptions frame the offering as industrial DesignOps: transforming process designs into automated control logic and digital twins, and enabling simulation of startup, shutdown, interlocks and operator workflows before DCS/PLC code is written, so that logic gaps, edge cases and integration issues are identified before commissioning. A separate profile describes "Project Playground," a patent-pending automation design visualization and collaboration product that animates design documents and drawings into an interactive prototype to reduce ambiguity and late design changes.
Founding story
Athion was founded in 2024 by automation engineers who had spent roughly a decade building the kinds of systems the company is now rebuilding. Founder Marsha Wisely is described as a process automation engineer who created Athion as the tool she wished she had had.
Business model
Athion sells software to industrial organizations, with an onboarding motion built around a free, remote 45-minute "Zero to Athion" session in which a prospect brings a real P&ID from their plant and leaves with a digital engineering asset built from it. A third-party listing categorizes the company under SaaS and software development.
Traction
A third-party job board lists the company at seed stage with 1-10 employees. The company is running free onboarding sessions with prospective customers and has two named design partners, Onyx 360 and Next Generation Controls. A third-party profile lists the company as never having raised funding.
Latest developments
An industry association profile lists Athion as a Bronze member since 2026, describing the product as enabling design and testing of control system behavior — startup, shutdown, interlocks and operator workflows — before DCS/PLC code is written. The company website is currently booking "Zero to Athion" sessions.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Athion targets the process manufacturing and industrial automation software space, spanning digital twin, P&ID automation, capital project execution and industrial DesignOps themes, and positions its product as complementary to existing OT stacks rather than a replacement.
The company emphasizes being built by automation engineers with prior experience building the systems it is rebuilding, vendor-agnostic integration with existing OT environments, an OT-first rather than IT-derived design, and combining AI with operational rigor. Its design-acceptance-testing concept applies pre-shipment testing practice to the design itself rather than only to control panels.
Technology
The platform extracts equipment, connections and context from engineering drawings and documents to produce a living, queryable design model. It supports versioning and bidirectional change propagation to downstream systems, and is described as generating automated control logic and digital twins from process designs, with simulation of startup, shutdown, interlocks and operator workflows ahead of DCS/PLC coding. The company states four design principles: vendor-agnostic (fitting an existing OT stack rather than replacing it), OT-first rather than retrofitted from IT, engineer-built, and applying AI alongside operational rigor.
Go-to-market
Direct outreach centered on a free remote workshop ("Zero to Athion"), booked through the company website in order of request, in which prospective customers bring their own drawing and see it ingested and connected. The company also works with named design partners and maintains a dedicated investor contact address.
Owner-operator engineering and operations leadership teams, system integrators and advanced process control firms, and EPC/project organizations in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, oil and gas, pulp and paper, food and beverage, and metals and mining.
Geography
Headquartered at 18336 Edison Ave, Chesterfield, Missouri, United States; customer sessions are delivered remotely. A third-party listing also associates an athion.de domain and a German phone number with the company.
History
Founded in 2024 and based in Chesterfield, Missouri, Athion assembled a leadership team of founder Marsha Wisely, COO Andrew "Drew" Soignier, CTO Ben Blackson and Technology Director Michael Wisely, and established Onyx 360 and Next Generation Controls as design partners shaping the product. As of the current site, the company is booking its "Zero to Athion" sessions and publishing a recurring puzzle series on its homepage.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsAthion appears in the automate.org company directory as a Bronze member, member since 2026, with an AI category designation and a Chesterfield, Missouri address.
Athion lists Onyx 360, a provider of 3D simulation and digital environment solutions, and Next Generation Controls, a specialty systems integrator across the process industries, as design partners shaping how the product works.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Athionathion.io · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Athion do?
- Athion builds an engineering system of record for process manufacturing that makes plant designs queryable, testable and versioned.
- Who are Athion's investors?
- Athion's investors include REFASHIOND Ventures, Techstars.
- Where is Athion headquartered?
- Athion is headquartered in Chesterfield, US.