Dubai start-up Titan raises $30m from parent company of WordPress.com

The deal, the biggest investment made by Automattic, values Titan at $300m

Bhavin Turakhia, chief executive officer of Titan. The Dubai start-up is valued at $300m after raising $30m in investment. Bloomberg

Dubai technology start-up Titan raised $30 million from Automattic, the parent company of popular online-publishing tool WordPress.com, in an investment deal that takes the UAE company's valuation to $300m.

Titan will use the funds, the single largest investment made by Automattic, to expand its range of products, the professional email platform said on Wednesday. It did not disclose any details on the new products.

“We believe in Titan’s potential to create a world-class suite of productivity tools that offer an in-dashboard, customised user experience, in which it gives users and partners ownership and control over their personal data," said Matt Mullenweg, founder and chief executive of Automattic.

"We are working to integrate it deeply on WordPress as a tool to help customers build a professional brand online."

Titan, which was founded by Dubai-based entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia, is part of the Nova group that also owns and operates communication app Flock. Nova currently has more than 200 employees, with offices across the Middle East, the US and the UK.

"Email is used by over one sixth of the global population for work, yet very little innovation has happened in business email over the last two decades,” said Mr Turakhia.

"In Titan, we have built a platform specifically designed for professionals and businesses, with features that drive their goals – streamlining workflow, automating tasks and making conversations richer and more contextual."

Titan aims to "reinvent" email for businesses, providing them with access to tools that traditionally come at a premium price, the company said.

Its features include Scheduled Send, which allows users to send new emails at a time when they are most likely to be read. With its Follow-Up Reminders feature, businesses can remain persistent when chasing up leads.

Titan also includes an Email Templates feature that allow users to quickly send out new emails and responses without having to draft them from scratch.

Titan is available through its partnerships with web-presence providers, including web-hosting domains and site-builder companies.

WordPress powers 42 per cent of the world's websites between the open-source software and Automattic's commercial WordPress.com offering.

Automattic's products include WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Tumblr, and WordPress VIP. It has more than 1,600 employees working from 86 countries.

In addition to Titan, Mr Turakhia's other ventures are banking technology start-up Zeta and internet domain registry Radix.

Zeta raised $250m in series C investment from Japan's SoftBank earlier this year. The company's customers include more than 10 banks and 25 FinTechs in eight countries.