Dubai, 4t Aug 2021: Titan, a professional email startup founded by serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia has secured a USD 30 million (about Rs 222.7 crore) investment from Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com.
This is the largest investment made by Automattic and values Titan at USD 300 million.
“(The investment has been made) with the goal of jointly working with us in a deep strategic relationship to both enable Automattic users to benefit from Titan and vice versa, as well as to work with us to achieve this vision of creating an outstanding email product for professionals and business users,” Turakhia told Pixr8 News in a virtual briefing.
He added that people signing up on WordPress.com with Automattic for a WordPress hosting website will have the ability to use Titan email, and manage their Titan email accounts from within WordPress.com.
WordPress powers 42 percent of the world’s websites between the open-source software and Automattic’s commercial WordPress.com offering.
“We are excited to make our largest strategic investment to date in Titan, and we are working to integrate it deeply on WordPress.com as a tool to help customers build a professional brand online. We believe in Titan’s potential to create a world-class suite of productivity tools that offer an in the dashboard, customized user experience, in which it gives users and partners ownership and control over their personal data,” Matt Mullenweg, founder, and Chief Executive Officer of Automattic said.
The investment in Titan comes on the heels of Zeta another company founded by Turakhia reached unicorn status with a USD 1.45 billion valuation following a USD 250 million investment from SoftBank. After co-founding Directi in 1998 with his brother, Divyank Turakhia, the two exited the business in 2014 in a USD 160 million transaction with Endurance (now Newfold Digital).
Bhavin then went on to start Radix, an internet domain registry, and fintech firm Zeta.
Turakhia noted that email is the most ubiquitous form of communication that exists out there today, even as other modes of communication like instant messaging and social networking have evolved.
“There are about one and a half billion people around the world that use email for business, sending an average of about 40 emails every day, and it is the de facto standard when it comes to communication at work, for discussions, for taking decisions, for closing deals, etc,” he said.
Turakhia pointed out that the business email experience continues to be exactly like personal email products despite the difference in requirements.
“In Titan, we’ve built a platform specifically designed for professionals and businesses with features that drive their goals streamlining workflows, automating tasks, and making conversations richer and more contextual. Features like follow-up reminders and email templates are designed to bring businesses closer to their customers,” he added.
Turakhia said Titan has over 100,000 active users and the aim is to take this to one million in the next one year, and 4-5 million users in 2-3 years.
While Turakhia did not comment on revenues, he said the company has about 120-130 people working across Dubai, Boston, Bengaluru, and Mumbai.
On data security, Turakhia said Titan has been built ground up with end-to-end encryption.