A SaaS Startup for Tradespeople, Glendale-Based ServiceTitan Raises $500M
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
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.
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
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