Bhavin Turakhia is co-founder and chief executive of Zeta, a banking technology company whose Tachyon platform processes credit cards, debit cards, loans, and deposits for banks in the United States and India. He started it in 2015 with Ramki Gaddipati.
A Mumbai Start
Turakhia was born in Mumbai in 1979 into a middle-class Jain family and went to Arya Vidya Mandir school in Bandra. He started out studying science at D.G. Ruparel College, dropped it, and earned a commerce degree from Sydenham College.
In 1998, at 18, he started Directi with his brother Divyank and ₹25,000 in capital. The company grew into a group of web businesses, including domain registration and hosting. In 2014 the brothers sold BigRock, LogicBoxes, ResellerClub, and Webhosting.info to Endurance International for $160 million. Turakhia also founded Flock, Titan, Radix, and the programming site CodeChef, and the World Economic Forum chose him as a Young Global Leader in 2011.
Building Zeta
Its customers include HDFC Bank, Pluxee, and Sparrow, and the United States is now its biggest market. Turakhia estimates that 60% to 70% of institutions still run on mainframes, which he sees as Zeta’s opening.
Investors have followed. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 put in $250 million in 2021, and in February 2025 Optum invested $50 million at a $2 billion valuation. Turakhia has said he expected revenue of $100 million to $200 million and a profit in fiscal 2026. Zeta competes with i2c and SoFi Technology Solutions.
Growth First
Turakhia has said an IPO is not his priority; growth is. Zeta now has more than 1,700 employees, over 70% of them in technology roles.
