Directi to invest $110 million in 4 startups including Zeta
Zeta, the mobile-based meal voucher platform by Directi is one among the four companies that will benefit from the $110 million investment by the parent company. According to the media reports, Bhavin and Divyank Turakhia-led technology company Directi is planning to invest $110 million in four new ventures – calling app called Ringo, a communications app called Flock, internet domain-name registration company called Radix, and Zeta.
In August, the Turakhia brothers were in news when they sold their global advertising technology company Media.net to a Chinese firm in an all-cash deal worth $900 million. In 2014, Endurance International Group also bought four brands that the brothers co-founded, for approximately $160 million.
Bhavin Turakhia, CEO, Directi said, “None of our plans for our businesses has ever been dependent on selling some other part of the company. That way our sales have never been planned; we have always said that we will be happy to continue to run our companies.”
Bhavin also stated that he had set high growth targets for Flock, Zeta and Radix and that all three are already growing faster than he had expected. As a result, the company will increase its hiring target for the year. “We said two months ago that we would hire about 1,000 people this year. But we were just talking that we will have to raise that number,” he added. The company is also set to buy a new office space in Bangalore because of the faster growth rate which has induced hiring.
In January 2016, Directi launched Zeta, a mobile-based meal voucher platform. The app provides HR Managers an instant one-click distribution platform of digitised meal coupons to employees across cities.
From the $110 million, Zeta will receive $25 million. Bhavin said, “We are committing to an investment of $110 million in the current and next financial year across the 4 businesses - Flock, Zeta, Radix and Ringo. We have already invested $4 million in Zeta in the last financial year and in the current and next financial year, we further plan to invest $25 million.”
The investment will be used “to acquire 1 million active users and our offering to them would be a series of products starting with the current employee benefit product suite like Zeta Meal Vouchers, Gift Cards, Medical Reimbursements & the Gadget Card,” he said.
With major expansion plans across all our brands, Directi aims to further build the office strength in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, and add new offices all across the country starting with Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. Zeta is headquartered in Bangalore and the headcount is growing rapidly. The profiles of the candidates being hired is a mix of Software developers, B-school students, Graduates and Design students across different brands.
Ringo is an international calling app for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices, making international calls simple and inexpensive. It claims to offer landline call quality at a fraction of the cost when compared to traditional long distance calling. It was founded in 2014. In the same year, they founded Flock which is an enterprise communication and collaboration service – a messaging app for teams.
Internet domain registration company, Radix was founded in 2012. According to its website, it is an active participant in ICANN’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) process to expand the internet naming system and introduce internet addresses.
Founded in 1998, Directi is a conglomerate of tech companies operating globally including US, China, Europe, Dubai and India.