Ritankar Das wants the holding company to make its comeback.
“For the 20th century and for much of human history, [holding companies] were how things worked,” said Das, founder of AI-focused holding company Titan Holdings. “That’s how you got your railroads to work, in conjunction with other types of industries that were adjacent.” While such conglomerates exist today (like Koch Industries or Danaher), you don’t necessarily see new ones being formed, Das adds.
However one feels about Koch or the “robber barons,” it struck me that Das has a point: In the thousands of pitches I’ve received, I don’t know if anyone has ever come to me saying “here’s my new holding company.” However, a holding company—a business structure whose purpose it is to hold interests in other businesses—is a model with vaunted history, pioneered in the 1800s by John D. Rockefeller and, I would argue, perfected in modern times by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. It’s a model, notably, that can link to venture capital, but doesn’t inherently rely upon it.
There are holding companies in tech (take Alphabet, for instance) and Das believes a holding company can particularly work in AI, where it can be helpful to transfer insights and knowledge across domains. One example Das points to: Tesla’s experience manufacturing, he points out, has been helping Elon Musk’s xAI build its data centers.
In 2014, Das started Titan Holdings, seeking to focus on applying AI to industries like healthcare and finance. Since then, Das—a former Cambridge AI PhD student who dropped out to start Titan—has launched several operating companies, including disease intervention researcher Dascena (acquired by CirrusDx in 2022) and autism care startup Forta Health (which raised a $55 million Insight Partners-led Series A in 2024).
“We’re doing this intentional structure,” said Das. “It’s not a venture fund, right? We don’t have any LPs. Our holding company itself is entirely funded by our exits. We don’t raise outside capital into the holding company, and sometimes we raise capital into our operating companies. It’s not a venture studio, which may have 30 or 40 companies. We have five operating companies right now.”
That five operating company-count includes something new: Das and Titan have recently launched Tala Health, focused on building an agentic AI platform for healthcare. Tala has raised a $100 million seed round, led by Miami-based Sofreh Capital and with participation from Dr. P. Roy Vagelos, former chairman and CEO of Merck.
“Wealthy folks, for a long time, have been able to afford concierge medicine,” said Das. “We believe that type of concierge at-home care is going to reach more and more people.”
Tala—which provides a platform of AI agents that it says can improve patient care—will roll out to clinicians next year. The company says it has contracts in place with three large U.S. health insurers, declining to disclose names.
Fair warning to possible takers—Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was broken up in 1911 via an antitrust crackdown. But Das believes there’s lots of potential in the holding company model.
“I suspect if more of these holding companies became successful [in tech],” said Das. “There’s a lot of taste-making. If more of these come to life, I think more people are going to start them.”
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Venture Deals
- Liquid, a New York-based financial trading mobile app, raised a $7.6 million seed round. Paradigm led the round, joined by General Catalyst.
- Helex, a New York-based biotech focused on kidney diseases, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Pi Ventures led the round, with participation from Bluehill Capital, SOSV, and others.
- Octonomy, a Cologne, Germany-based agentic AI company focused on complex enterprises, raised $20 million in seed funding. Macquarie Capital Venture Capital led the round, with participation from Capnamic, NRW.Bank, and the TechVision Fund.
Private Equity
- Valence Surface Technologies, backed by ATL Partners, acquired Foresight Finishing, a Tempe, Ariz.-based precious metal surface treatment provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.