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Xara mahdessian
A platform built for the millions of contractors and blue-collar tradespeople, ServiceTitan has become a giant.
Built by the children of immigrant trades workers, the Glendale-based company picked up Aspire Software, adding landscaping to its software platform for residential and commercial contractors. ServiceTitan also raised $200 million in Series G funding.
Wednesday's moves bring the ServiceTitan's valuation to $9.5 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups in Southern California. The funding round was led by Thoma Bravo, a leading software investment firm.
The software company had a $500 million round of funding four months ago in March and acquired ServicePro, a software company for the pest control industry, in February.
ServiceTitan's software is targeted toward tradespeople and offers a wide toolkit of software for contractors, like scheduling, invoicing and marketing.
Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan founded the company in 2012, inspired by their parents who worked tirelessly but didn't have the software or system to track their business.
"Our parents' businesses were still frozen in time," Mahdessian, who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran as a child, told dot.LA in March. "All this hard work that they were doing, much of it was unnecessary. We could automate it for them."
ServiceTitan said it has grown 50% over the last 12 months. Demand for home improvement services surged during the pandemic as office workers set up at their residences.
"Both Aspire and ServiceTitan were born out of a desire to improve the lives of contractors who work tirelessly to serve their communities, but who have historically been underserved by technology," Mahdessian said in a press release.
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ServiceTitan is decidedly uncool and unglamorous, making all-in-one software for residential and commercial HVAC, plumbing, electrical and tradesmen. But that model has made it one of Southern California's most valuable startups.
The Glendale-based company announced Friday it has raised a half billion dollars at a $8.3 billion valuation. The round was led by Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital Global Equities with participation from H.I.G. Growth Partners. Existing investors participated, including Arena Holdings, Battery Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Dragoneer Investment Group, Durable Capital Partners LP, ICONIQ Growth and Index Ventures.
ServiceTitan also announced that it has surpassed $250 million in annual recurring revenue, achieving 50% growth over the past 12 months.
Ara Mahdessian, co-founder and CEO of ServiceTitan, who immigrated with his family to the U.S. as a young boy from Iran, attributes the company's success to its singular focus on customers.
"We will do anything it takes to make one of our customers or contractors successful," Mahdessian told dot.LA co-founder Spencer Rascoff. "If we mess something up, we will go to the end of the world to fix it, even if it cost us an arm and a leg.... it's the right thing to do. And it's always worked out for us financially as well."
Mahdessian and co-founder and President Vahe Kuzoyan founded ServiceTitan in 2012 as a way to make their fathers' lives easier. They both worked as tradesmen.
Most of ServiceTitan's financing has come from Silicon Valley, but Santa Monica-based Mucker Capital got in on the company's 2015 Series-A financing at a $100 million post-money valuation.
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Shoeboxes full of invoices and receipts ignited the idea of ServiceTitan for Ara Mahdessian, the company's co-founder and CEO.
An Armenian kid from Iran, Ara immigrated with his family to the U.S. as a young boy. He watched his parents assimilate to their new country while toiling into late hours of the night in order to give their family a good life. Ara said, "I remember my parents would come home...extremely tired, exhausted, dusty and still have hours of work to do...And all this happened at dinner time. It happened after dinner. And so was this work that never ended."
Ara's parents' hard work paid off. Ara attended Stanford where he studied software engineering. He and his co-founder, Vahe Kuzoyan, also a software engineer, applied their knowledge to create automated software for home and commercial service businesses like plumbing and electrical work.
Their software allows for scheduling, dispatching, payroll, recording, payments, invoicing, etc. Ara said one of the most important values to the company is fanatical focus on customer success. "We will do anything it takes to make one of our customers or contractors successful," he said. "If we mess something up, we will go to the end of the world to fix it, even if it cost us an arm and a leg....it's the right thing to do. And it's always worked out for us financially as well.
Ara embodies two of the most significant qualities I look for in founders: a personal connection to the problem they're trying to solve and grit.
Hear why Ara feels having a software engineering background makes him a better leader, what do look for in investment partners and the values he emphasizes at ServiceTitan to ensure a high-quality, supportive and productive company culture.
Ara Mahdessian is the co-founder and CEO of ServiceTitan.
dot.LA Sr. Podcast Producer & Editor Laurel Moglen contributed to this post.
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