Divyank Turakhia: The Billionaire Who Transformed Ad-Tech in Dubai

A computer programmer turned into a billionaire entrepreneur, his journey has been one of determination, skill, and innovative vision. Not only has he built a fortune through his ventures but he also sold Media.net — one of the world’s biggest ad-tech deals worth $900 million in 2016 — to a Chinese consortium. That too made headlines across the globe and nailed down Turakhia’s position as a trailblazer in the industry. His success feats have earned him multiple accolades such as the prestigious ET Panache Trendsetter Award by The Economic Times for making a difference in the tech and advertising world.

Grown up in India, Divyank Turakhia always has the passion of technology and entrepreneurship since his childhood days. With his brother Bhavin, he co-founded his first tech company during his teenage years. This early start in programming marked the beginning of what was to become an exceptional career. The brothers started modestly with their ventures as the beginning, but forward thinking and tech-savviness soon brought them into the internet-based business world. As such, by focusing on these emerging opportunities that existed within the online space, they were able to come up with solutions that attracted major global players.

In 2010, Divyank started Media.net, which was to prove a crowning achievement of his life. Media.net focused contextual advertising, in which ads were represented in relevance to content a user was viewing and not just based on tracking the user. That was very forward-looking, akin to the shift towards privacy-conscious advertising that still exists today. This enabled Turakhia to leverage experience into the development of a robust ad-tech platform for the world’s major publishers and advertisers through Media.net.

Media.net, under Turakhia, turned into almost an overnight sensation in the space of an ad-tech solution, specially tailored for industry leaders. The company’s unique technological offerings combined with a customer-centric approach set it apart in a competitive market, and by 2016, Media.net had turned into a billion-dollar business by garnering investment from across the globe.

But Turakhia was not to stop there, and by 2016, he also achieved new success by selling Media.net to a consortium of Chinese investors for an astonishing $900 million. That deal turned Turakhia into a billionaire and further demonstrated the vast importance of innovative ad solutions in this increasingly digital world. This sale marked another landmark in the world of global ad-tech with underlining Dubai’s standing as a centre for innovation in the world of technology besides displaying the potential from these UAE-based entrepreneurs of the global industry.

The story of Divyank Turakhia, subsequent to the sale, kept inspiring budding entrepreneurs, as he is now very much in the tech world, investing in his projects and consulting others for new ventures. His work highlights determination, flexibility, and an unrelenting commitment to quality and innovation. Constantly pushing boundaries, Turakhia has marked success in the fast-evolving ad-tech sphere. Turakhia’s success has also inspired a generation of new entrepreneurs in technology sectors in the UAE and around the world. His transition from a programmer to a billionaire embodies what technical talents can achieve when combined with an entrepreneurial vision.