# Varun Banka

> Varun Banka is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Atlan, the active metadata platform and data governance control plane trusted by 200+ enterprise customers across 50+ countries. Originally from Ranchi, India, Varun co-founded SocialCops with Prukalpa Sankar while studying at Nanyang Technological University - a data-for-social-good company that powered India's national data platform used by PM Modi and impacted over a billion lives. When their internal data tooling made their own team 6x more agile, they realized the world's data teams needed the same. Atlan was born, raised $105M Series C in May 2024 at a $750M valuation, and is now building what it calls the 'context layer for the AI-native enterprise.'

- **Role:** Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Atlan
- **Organizations:** Atlan, SocialCops, Nanyang Technological University (alumni)
- **From:** Ranchi, India
- **Nationality:** Indian
- **Education:** Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering with Business Minor, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore
- **Known for:** Co-built India's National Data Platform (Disha), which tracked 42 government schemes and was used by PM Modi and all MPs, SocialCops platforms directly impacted the lives of over 1 billion people, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree

## Career timeline

- **2009** — Enrolled at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; served as NTU campus lead for Microsoft Student Partners
- **2011** — Internship as Software Engineer at Microsoft
- **2012** — Internship at Barclays Capital in Operations and Cross-Product Technology
- **2012** — Co-founded SocialCops with Prukalpa Sankar during final year at NTU, raising initial $25,000 through crowdfunding and competitions
- **2013** — Graduated NTU; launched SocialCops full-time as a data-for-social-good platform
- **2015** — Named to Fortune India's 40-Under-40 list at age 23, one of the youngest honorees
- **2015-2017** — SocialCops built India's National Data Platform (Disha) - the nation's largest data lake, used by PM Modi and all members of parliament; also deployed in Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka
- **2017** — Recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia; SocialCops data platforms tracked progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals
- **2018** — Co-founded Atlan with Prukalpa Sankar, pivoting the internal data tooling from SocialCops into a commercial enterprise platform
- **2019** — Atlan raises $2.5M seed round; TechCrunch covers the launch
- **2022** — Atlan raises $50M Series B at $450M valuation, led by Salesforce Ventures, Insight Partners, and Sequoia Capital India
- **2024** — Atlan raises $105M Series C led by GIC and Meritech Capital, reaching $750M valuation; revenues grew 7x in two years; 400% enterprise sales growth in Q1 2024

## Achievements

- Co-built India's National Data Platform (Disha), which tracked 42 government schemes and was used by PM Modi and all MPs
- SocialCops platforms directly impacted the lives of over 1 billion people
- Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree
- Fortune India 40-Under-40 at age 23 (2015)
- Raised $201M+ for Atlan across Seed, Series A, B, and C rounds
- Led Atlan to $750M valuation as of May 2024
- Built data platform adopted by 200+ enterprise customers across 50+ countries including Cisco, Nasdaq, Unilever, and Ralph Lauren
- Atlan achieves 80% win rate in competitive enterprise trials
- Championed 'active metadata' as a new category in enterprise data management
- Recognized by New York Times as a Global Visionary (via SocialCops work)

## Latest updates

- **2024-05** — Atlan raises $105M Series C led by GIC (Singapore sovereign wealth fund) and Meritech Capital, valuing the company at $750M
- **2024-05** — Atlan reports 7x revenue growth over two years and 400% enterprise sales growth in Q1 2024
- **2024-06** — Atlan presents at Snowflake Data Cloud Summit, advancing Open Semantic Interchange standard with Snowflake partnership
- **2024-04** — Atlan recognized as a leader in enterprise data catalogs by global market research firms

## Links

- Website: https://atlan.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varunbanka
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/bankavarun
- GitHub: https://github.com/VarunBanka
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SocialCops/info

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/varun-banka
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-22