Zeta founder eyeing IPO in North America by 2028 DUBAI: Zeta, a Dubai-based banking technology startup, has won a $250 million investment from Japan’s SoftBank as it aims to secure a bigger share of the $300 billion global banking software market. Co-founded by serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia in 2015, Zeta works with banking and financial institutions to offer a modern software alternative. “Most banks are using decades-old software. They have been slow to innovate and provide poor user experiences,” Turakhia said. “We’ve invested, probably I think, close to about $70 million in capital thus far, building out a platform. And since a lot of our development takes place in India, in Silicon Valley terms that will always be about $200-250 million dollars in capital,” he told Arab News. The SoftBank investment values the company at $1.45 billion and it plans to use the funding to scale up its global operations. “We will be accelerating our growth in the Middle East in terms of seeking customers sometime in Q4 this year. But, predominantly right now, our focus is North America and the UK in terms of selling the services,” Turakhia said. The funding was sourced from SoftBank’s $30 billion Vision Fund 2. Saudi Arabia invested in the Japanese firm’s first vision fund and Zeta hopes to use this to help it expand in the Kingdom. “Softbank has considerable relevant connections also in the Saudi market that we can leverage,” Turakhia said. He aimed to scale up Zeta’s business and eventually launch an initial public offering (IPO) in the next few years, most likely in North America. “We"re looking at building a large company, and so the eventual goal would be sort of taking the company to an IPO. My assumption would be five to seven years ... (It) will end up being one of the big markets, quite likely North America, because that"s also anticipated to be our largest revenue market.” Zeta has around 750 employees across its offices in the US, the UK, the Middle East, and Asia.