James Perry, the CEO of San Diego-based Israeli water consultancy ASTERRA, has long been fascinated by disruptive technologies. He started his career as a “data analytics geek,” he says, and 30 years later, he still considers himself a fan of driving innovation through information and data.
Perry spent most of his career focused on scaling startups, much of it during the 16 years he worked at Fortune 50 company HP. While there, he encountered several companies in Israel at the forefront of disruptive technologies, particularly related to infrastructure and water sustainability.
One was a new company called Utilis, which was renamed ASTERRA in 2021. The company uses satellite imagery and a proprietary artificial intelligence algorithm to identify the location and types of water present underground at depths of up to 10 feet.
ASTERRA was founded in 2013 by Israeli geophysicist Lauren Guy, who recognized that technology developed by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration to find water below the soil surface on Mars could also be applied to Earth. ASTERRA uses an L-band synthetic aperture radar to detect soil moisture, which can identify leaks in infrastructure as well as water features.
Since 2016, the firm says it has verified 100,000 leaks worldwide, saving more than 368 billion gallons of drinking water and 920,000 MW hours of energy annually. Perry was hooked and joined the team. “I could have walked off into the sunset at HP, but I was really motivated by what we’re doing here, from an Earth observation work, a sustainability work. We’re really working to support today’s infrastructure around the world with this incredible technology.”
Since 2016, Perry helped drive the company’s growth as chief development officer, then into senior leadership, succeeding former CEO Elly Perets in January 2025.
Perry has been a strong advocate of the company’s services, speaking at water sector events such as the Water Environment Federation’s annual WEFTEC conference. In 2021, ASTERRA won the American Water Works Association Innovation Award.
This year, ASTERRA signed a $1 million contract with the state of New Mexico to help small community water systems identify leaks in drinking water infrastructure that contribute to the state’s water shortages. Under the contract, the company will work with different small water systems across the state annually for the next four years to identify leaks.
The company formalized the contract in November after successfully completing a pilot program with the state Department of the Environment, field inspectors, consulting firm McKim & Creed and five local municipal water systems. The pilot initiative saved about 345,000 gallons of water per day in the first half of 2025, according to ASTERRA. Once leaks are identified using longwave satellite imagery, they are verified by inspectors on the ground.
Once complete, each small water system in the state will have a detailed report of where the water leaks are, “and then we’re working on partner programs to provide support for the actual fix of the leaks,” says Andrew Hautzinger, special projects coordinator for the state Department of the Environment.
Perry describes the project as a “game changer” for the company. Although ASTERRA had established itself with water utilities in the US, it had not worked as much with state agencies.
“We’ve moved way beyond being a startup and a startup mentality, where you chase every application and any revenue to drive and fund a business,” says Perry. “We’ve done a great job of establishing ourselves at the water service level, and that was kind of our direct business model, especially in the US.” But the company didn’t focus much on state agencies.
Looking ahead, Perry says he hopes to find the top 2,000 to 3,000 of the 55,000 water utilities in the U.S., as well as state and “ultimately federal programs to help us scale into the U.S. market.”
