Atlan's journey began not as a product, but as a solution to an internal struggle. Its founders, Prukalpa Sankar and Varun Banka, were first leading SocialCops, a 'data for good' enterprise. While tackling complex, large-scale data projects aimed at solving humanitarian problems, including building India's national data platform, they repeatedly encountered the chaos of managing disparate data and fostering collaboration among diverse teams. The existing tools in the market didn't quite address their pain points. This firsthand experience with messy, siloed, and ungoverned data became the crucible in which Atlan was forged. For over five years, the team at SocialCops built and refined internal tools to streamline their own data operations, making their team significantly more agile.
Recognizing that the challenges they faced were universal to data teams everywhere, Sankar and Banka decided to productize their internal solution. After about two years of experimenting and stress-testing these tools across over 200 data projects, including work with the United Nations, they were convinced that their creation was ready for the wider world. Thus, Atlan was officially launched in 2019, emerging from stealth with a mission to empower data teams globally. Initially known as Peeply Technologies Private Limited, the company rebranded as Atlan. Headquartered in Singapore, Atlan quickly gained traction, offering a modern data collaboration workspace designed to act as a central hub for all data assets. It aimed to be the 'GitHub for engineering or Figma for design' but for data teams, enabling them to create a single source of truth and collaborate effectively across the modern data stack. The platform's ability to integrate with numerous data tools, automate metadata enrichment, and provide robust governance capabilities has resonated with companies ranging from high-growth startups to Fortune 500 enterprises.