At 18, Bhavin Turakhia started a company with Rs 25,000 and his brother Divyank. That was roughly $675.
He was born in Mumbai in 1979 into a middle-class Jain family and went to school at Arya Vidya Mandir in Bandra. College did not go smoothly. He began a science course at D.G. Ruparel College and left it, then finished a commerce degree at Sydenham College. By then the company, Directi, was already running with his brother Divyank. A BBC video about him later carried the title 'I followed my father's advice and became a billionaire.'
Ruparel College and left it, then finished a commerce degree at Sydenham College.
Directi built the plumbing of the early web: domain names, hosting, reseller tools. Brands like BigRock and Reseller Club grew out of it. In 2014 the brothers sold four of those businesses, BigRock, LogicBoxes, Reseller Club and Webhosting.info, to Endurance International Group for $160 million. Forbes India put Bhavin on its 2016 rich list at number 95, with $1.3 billion.
Most people would have stopped there. He did something odder. In April 2015 he and engineer Ramki Gaddipati started Zeta, a company aimed at the dullest, most regulated corner of tech: how banks run cards and accounts. In 2016 Turakhia put about $19 million of his own money into it. Banks are not known for trusting young software firms with their core systems, and Zeta had to earn that trust one contract at a time.
The turn came through food vouchers. Sodexo, the meal-benefits giant, invested in July 2019 at a $300 million valuation and folded its Indian benefits unit into Zeta. In 2020 Zeta took its platform to the Philippines and Vietnam, with Sodexo as the first client. Then in 2021 SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a $250 million round at $1.45 billion, and Zeta became a unicorn. Mastercard added $30 million in March 2022.
It did not stand still. In 2024 Zeta launched a credit product on NPCI's Credit Line on UPI and said it processes around 2 million transactions a day. In February 2025 a strategic investor, reported to be Optum, put in $50 million at a $2 billion valuation. For FY24 the company reported revenue of Rs 893 crore and a net profit of Rs 119 crore. Asked about a listing, Turakhia said in 2025 that aggressive growth, not an IPO, was the priority.
What stands out is the order of things. Turakhia had money and a name before Zeta, and still took the slow road: years of building a product no customer had yet asked for, then one anchor client, then the funds. The lesson for a first-time founder is that the anchor customer matters more than the big round. Sodexo gave Zeta revenue, a reference and a valuation in a single deal, and the later money followed it.