Ascerta Secures $18M to Scale Enterprise AI Management

The big picture: Enterprise AI has moved from experimentation to a material line item. Companies can count tokens, licenses, agent runs and lines of AI-generated code, yet many still cannot answer the question that determines what happens next: which AI initiatives are actually worth scaling. Ascerta was built to give them that answer. Today, the company formerly known as Pay-i announced its new name alongside an $18 million Series A led by Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from Hitachi Ventures, BGV, Wipro Ventures and earlier investors. The round brings total funding to $22.9 million and will help Ascerta scale what it calls Enterprise AI Management, giving companies a single view of AI cost, adoption and business value across the organization.

Why it matters:

• Unclear ROI: Enterprises struggle to link AI initiatives to measurable business value, leading to wasted investment and difficulty in scaling successful projects.
• Scaling Challenges: Rapid AI adoption outpaces the ability to track costs, usage, and actual impact, creating a widening gap in understanding AI’s true contribution.
• Data Overload: Companies collect ‘vanity metrics’ like token counts but lack actionable insights to optimize AI spend and strategically guide future investments.

How it works:

• Unified Visibility: Ascerta provides a single system to track AI cost, adoption, and business value across an organization’s existing AI tools, including Copilot, Bedrock AgentCore, and coding agents.
• Value Optimization: The platform connects AI use cases to specific business KPIs, identifying high-value initiatives, areas for improvement, and opportunities to cut waste.
• Granular Cost Tracking: Ascerta measures the true cost of AI down to individual model calls, including sub-token costs, hidden fees, and enterprise discounts, ensuring accurate spend optimization.

The catch: The Enterprise AI Management space is rapidly evolving, with many vendors offering solutions for AI governance, cost optimization, or performance monitoring. Ascerta’s challenge will be to differentiate its comprehensive value-centric approach from point solutions and demonstrate clear, quantifiable ROI in a competitive market where enterprises are increasingly scrutinizing AI budgets.

Key Facts

• Company: Ascerta
• Amount: $18M
• Round: Series A
• Investors: Dell Technologies Capital (lead), Hitachi Ventures, BGV, Wipro Ventures
• Founders: David Tepper, Doron Holan, Erik Winters
• Sector: Enterprise AI Management