Divyank Turakhia
Founder and CEO at Media.net
Building Media.net into one of the largest contextual advertising networks globally and engineering its $900 million acquisition — one of the most significant exits in AdTech history.
Last updated May 30, 2026 by the ATDb Editorial Team
Divyank Turakhia is one of the most prolific entrepreneurs in the global AdTech industry, best known for founding Media.net, a contextual advertising network that powers the Yahoo! Bing Network Contextual Ads program and serves as a primary revenue source for hundreds of thousands of publishers worldwide. His $900 million sale of Media.net to a Chinese consortium in 2016 remains one of the largest AdTech acquisitions in history and cemented his reputation as a builder of category-defining advertising technology businesses. Turakhia began his entrepreneurial journey in India at a remarkably young age, co-founding multiple internet businesses alongside his brother Bhavin Turakhia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. His domain and digital marketing ventures, including Skenzo — a domain monetization and parking platform — demonstrated an early mastery of performance-based advertising and search monetization. These businesses laid the technical and commercial foundation for Media.net, which he launched to compete directly with Google AdSense by offering publishers a high-quality alternative through contextual display and native ad formats. Beyond advertising, Turakhia has shown a broad entrepreneurial range, including his involvement with CodeChef, a competitive programming platform that has cultivated developer talent globally. Known for operating largely outside the traditional Silicon Valley spotlight, he has built multi-hundred-million-dollar businesses from Dubai and India, making him a distinctive figure in the global AdTech landscape and an influential voice for entrepreneurship in emerging markets.
Founder and CEO
Skenzo (2007-2014)
Co-Founder
Directi (1998-2014)
Founder
CodeChef (2009-2014)
- Attended H.R. College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai (did not complete degree)
- Founded Media.net, one of the world's largest contextual advertising networks powering the Yahoo! Bing Network Contextual Ads program
- Sold Media.net to a Chinese consortium for $900 million in 2016, one of the largest AdTech acquisitions in history
- Built multiple successful internet and AdTech businesses starting as a teenager in India
- Grew Media.net to serve hundreds of thousands of publishers globally before the acquisition