“I think the VC markets are a little frothy right now,” Sankar said, adding, “I would really caution founders to think hard about capital. There’s definitely hype associated with that.”
However, she clarified that the tech was salient. “I believe the technology is here. It’s going to change everything. We can argue the timelines, but this is the biggest change we’ve seen in our lifetime. I don’t think the technology is hype at all.”
“The financial markets, both the VC and the capital markets, are pretty high in the hype cycle right now,” she added.
Cofounded by Sankar with Varun Banka in 2023, Atlan is a data collaboration startup. Its platform stitches together a company’s scattered data with AI use cases into what it calls a context layer, creating a single version of truth. She was the winner of the Woman Ahead category at the ET Startup Awards, 2025.
Sankar also spoke about challenges in the AI stack. “It all flows down to the model layer where you’re building. Even though the tokens keep getting cheaper, the tasks keep getting more complex. So, the overall cost keeps increasing. Even the model layer companies are not making any money.”
Pointing to where the money is, Sankar noted, “85% of the AI-native revenue has been created by the foundation models, and about 96% of AI-native revenue is concentrated in 12 companies. The next 10 companies actually pass on most of their revenue to the models,” she explained, adding that this creates an unusual ecosystem.
On consolidation, Sankar said the current trends are typical of any industry, “We’re in a very normal cycle of consolidation right now. You either earn the right to consolidate, or you get consolidated.”
The AI space has seen high-profile acquisitions and acquihires. Google’s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz in March last year, CoreWeave’s $9 billion all-stock purchase of Core Scientific in July, Cognition acquiring Windsurf in July, and Snowflake’s acquisition of Observe are some of the examples.
Atlan raised $206 million between 2021 and 2024 from the likes of Insight Partners, Peak XV Partners, Salesforce Ventures, and Singapore’s GIC, among others, and is valued at about $750 million.
Sankar is a juror at the ET AI Awards, 2026.
