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.
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.”
“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,
