About Asato
Asato's mission is that no organization should pay for technology nobody uses. Asato is the asset optimization platform built for the AI era: its AI agents find the technology an organization pays for and nobody uses, put a price and an owner on each item, carry out the fixes a named person approves, and keep watching. Asato Corporation was started on May 4, 2023 by Sundari Mitra (Founder and CEO) and Anush Mohandass (Founder and COO), who met the problem themselves while leading large organizations at Intel. Asato is based in San Jose, California.
Headline on the page: Who we are, and why we are here.
Line under the headline, Asato's mission: No organization should pay for technology nobody uses.
The people behind Asato (founders, leadership team, board of directors, board of advisors and backers) are on the Team page: https://www.asato.ai/team
The page is written in the first person ("we"). In this file "we" is given as Asato or as the founders.
When to use this page
- To read why Asato was started, in the founders' own account.
- To read Asato's mission, what the name means and the rules the company holds to.
- To check who started Asato, and when.
Not on this page
- How the platform works in detail. See the Platform page.
- Each customer's story. See the Case studies page.
- Certifications, security reports and how changes are approved. See the Trust Center at https://trust.asato.ai and the Platform page.
- Press releases and announcements. See the Newsroom.
- Who leads Asato, who sits on its boards and who has invested in it. See the Team page.
Company facts
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Legal name | Asato Corporation |
| What it is | An asset optimization platform for CIOs and IT leaders at large organizations. Healthcare is the lead industry |
| Mission | No organization should pay for technology nobody uses |
| Started on | May 4, 2023 |
| Started by | Sundari Mitra, Founder and CEO, and Anush Mohandass, Founder and COO |
| Based in | San Jose, California |
| Investors | CDW, Intel Capital, Shah Capital Partners, Global Asset Capital (GAC), Lip-Bu Tan, Sanjay Mehrotra, Charlie Giancarlo, Ash Bhardwaj, Amarjit Gill, Jorge del Calvo, Sowri Krishnan, Imran Salim, Saf Yeboah-Amankwah |
| Reseller | CDW |
| Partners | PwC, Genpact, CTC |
| Trust Center | https://trust.asato.ai |
Why Asato was started: the founders' account
Heading on the page: We were the customer first.
The page tells it in three short paragraphs, with the CIOs' sentence beside them.
- At NetSpeed Systems, about 50 people modeled a chip as one graph, every block linked to what it depends on. NetSpeed Systems is the company Sundari Mitra founded and Anush Mohandass joined early; Intel acquired it in 2018.
- At Intel, leading thousands of people, the founders could not see what their own organizations owned. Each team had a different answer, so cuts were spread evenly instead of made where it was safe.
- The founders asked CIOs whether they had the same problem.
- In 2023 they started Asato, and they kept asking: 150 CIOs so far.
This is the founders' own account of their experience, and the figures in it are theirs.
Beside the account the page shows a picture that plays in a loop, with a pause control. It has three states, and a line above it names each one:
- "50 people. Everything in view." Fifty dots fill the picture, each linked to its neighbors.
- "8,000 people. Every team, its own answer." The view pulls back until the fifty are lost among 8,000 dots with no links between them.
- "One graph. Every asset tied to its owner." Lines link the field of dots again.
The picture is an illustration of the founders' account, not data. For a reader who has asked for reduced motion it does not play, and rests on the third state.
What the CIOs said
Asato interviewed 150 CIOs between 2023 and 2026 about the technology they pay for and nobody uses. Of those, 147 said a version of the same sentence: "I know it is in there, I cannot find it, and I cannot fix it." Three said they had no waste. This is what the CIOs reported, not a measurement.
On the page the sentence is set large, as a quote. The lines under it read: 147 of 150 CIOs said a version of this sentence. Three said they had no waste. Asato interviews, 2023 to 2026.
Asato answers the two halves of that sentence. It finds the waste: it connects to the tools an organization already runs and finds what sits between them, with a price and an owner on each item. And it fixes it: Asato's AI agents carry out the fixes a named person approves, log each one, and keep watching.
What the name means
The last line of the founders' account on the page: "The name is from a Sanskrit line, asato ma sadgamaya: from untruth to truth."
The line is usually given in full as "lead me from untruth to truth". Asato ties the name to its work: replacing the several versions an organization is told with the one that is true, and then acting on it. The method behind that is the one the founders used for chips: a knowledge graph, which in Asato's platform is called the Asset Knowledge Graph.
Asato today
Heading on the page: Asato today.
| On the page | What it says |
|---|---|
| Customers | Large US health systems, and companies including CDW, Intel, Zymo Research, FTC Solar, DART and WellStreet Urgent Care |
| Saved | $4M a year off one Microsoft renewal at an enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats. $1.9M of software spend at a multi-site health system |
| Connects to | More than 100 of the tools an organization already runs |
| Partners | CDW resells Asato. PwC, Genpact and CTC are partners, and Asato is on Microsoft Marketplace |
| Recognition | A notable vendor in Forrester's SaaS and Software Asset Management Solutions Landscape, Q3 2026. An Emerging Leader on G2's SMP and ITAM Grids, rated 4.8 out of 5 |
| Based in | San Jose, California |
The page gives no count of customers. The two Saved figures are each from one customer, and each is in the state Saved: the customer has stopped paying it. The enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats and the multi-site health system are different customers, and neither is named. The Microsoft renewal has a case study page, which gives the figure with its scope and period. The multi-site health system has no case study page.
What Asato holds to
Heading on the page: What we hold to.
| Rule | In full |
|---|---|
| Results, not reports | Asato is judged on what a customer stops paying for, not on the charts it draws. Found, Approved and Saved are counted separately |
| Follow the money | Every item Asato finds carries a price and an owner. Where Asato cannot trace the money, it does not offer a conclusion |
| People decide | Nothing changes until a person the customer names approves it. Sometimes the right decision is to keep what looks like waste |
| Your data stays yours | Asato changes nothing without approval, nothing is installed on an endpoint, and customer data never trains any model |
| Our fee comes from the savings | If it finds no savings, the customer pays nothing |
The team
The people behind Asato (the founders, the leadership team, the board of directors, the board of advisors and the backers) are on the Team page: https://www.asato.ai/team
The founding date and the all-hands tradition
Heading on the page: Asatoans, assemble!
Line under it: We are engineers at heart, and we have stopped hiding it.
The page gives three facts under that line.
- May the 4th. Asato was incorporated on May 4, 2023, which is Star Wars Day ("May the 4th", a play on the line "May the Force be with you"). Asato hurried the paperwork to make the date, and says, lightly, that it likes to think the Force has been with it since.
- The picture. The page shows an illustration of Asato's own team drawn as superheroes, assembling under a glowing shield. Every Asato all-hands meeting opens with that picture and the call "Asatoans, assemble!". The call is borrowed from the Avengers ("Avengers, assemble").
- Two weeks to build anything. Asato says it takes its engineers two weeks to build a new integration, a new data source, a new data product or a new asset class.
Milestones
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2018 | Intel acquires NetSpeed Systems, where Sundari Mitra and Anush Mohandass were before Asato |
| May 4, 2023 | Asato is started |
| 2023 to 2026 | Asato interviews 150 CIOs |
| December 5, 2023 | Asato announces its seed round, co-led by Intel Capital and Lip-Bu Tan |
| July 10, 2025 | Asato and CDW announce their partnership |
| April 2026 | Asato becomes available on Microsoft Marketplace |
| August 2026 | Forrester includes Asato among the notable vendors in The SaaS and Software Asset Management Solutions Landscape, Q3 2026 |
Questions
What is Asato?
Asato is the asset optimization platform built for the AI era. Its AI agents find the technology an organization pays for and nobody uses, carry out the fixes a named person approves, and keep watching.
What is Asato's mission?
No organization should pay for technology nobody uses.
Who started Asato, and when?
Sundari Mitra, Founder and CEO, and Anush Mohandass, Founder and COO, started Asato on May 4, 2023. Sundari Mitra founded NetSpeed Systems, which Intel acquired in 2018, and Anush Mohandass joined it early and became its COO. Both then led large organizations at Intel.
Where is Asato based?
San Jose, California. The company's legal name is Asato Corporation.
Why was Asato started?
The founders met the problem themselves. At NetSpeed Systems about 50 people had modeled a chip as a knowledge graph. After Intel acquired NetSpeed in 2018, Sundari Mitra's organization at Intel grew to about 8,000 people, and the founders found they could not see what their own organizations owned: each team gave a different answer to the same question, so cuts were spread evenly instead of made where it was safe. They asked CIOs whether they had the same problem, started Asato in 2023, and kept asking. Of the 150 CIOs Asato interviewed between 2023 and 2026, 147 said a version of one sentence: "I know it is in there, I cannot find it, and I cannot fix it." Asato finds the waste, with a price and an owner on each item, and its AI agents carry out the fixes a named person approves.
What does the name Asato mean?
The name is from a Sanskrit line, "asato ma sadgamaya": lead me from untruth to truth. Asato ties it to its work: replacing the several versions an organization is told with the one that is true. The line belongs to a longer verse whose next line asks to be led from darkness to light, and Sundari Mitra has also said that in Japanese the name suggests dawn or a new beginning.
What does "Asatoans, assemble!" mean?
It is the call that opens every Asato all-hands meeting, over a picture of a team of superheroes. It is a pun on "Avengers, assemble".
Next step
Closing line on the page: Work with us, or see what we built.
- The page's button, "Get your Asset Clarity Report", opens the form at https://www.asato.ai/talk-to-sales. The same form takes a request for a demo.
- To join the team, see the Careers page.
Related pages
Last updated: 2026-10-08
