UpData Partners Backs TitanX in $27M Series A to Scale Phone Intent Category

UpData Partners has invested $27 million in TitanX, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based sales intelligence platform that predicts which prospects will answer cold calls before sales representatives dial. The Series A financing, announced January 20, 2026, marks a significant validation of the emerging "Phone Intent" category and comes as outbound sales teams grapple with declining connect rates and rising customer acquisition costs.

The deal represents a strategic bet by the Washington, D.C.-based growth equity firm on a bootstrapped company that has achieved more than 250% year-over-year revenue growth while building what it claims is a defensible first-mover advantage in predictive sales intelligence. Founded in 2024, TitanX has scaled to over 300 customers through word-of-mouth alone, delivering 25%+ connect rates—roughly six times the industry benchmark—without requiring customers to change their existing technology infrastructure.

The investment comes from UpData Partners VII, the firm's $608 million flagship fund that focuses on growth-stage investments in B2B software. UpData General Partner Braden Snyder and Operating Advisor Elizabeth Cholawsky will join TitanX's board as the company enters what CEO Joey Gilkey describes as a critical inflection point in defining the standard for modern revenue execution.

The transaction provides TitanX with capital to expand its proprietary scoring platform, deepen integrations across outbound sales workflows, develop new products for phone-led revenue teams, and pursue strategic M&A opportunities. The financing structure was not disclosed, though the deal represents a growth equity investment rather than a traditional venture capital round.

The deal follows an unusual trajectory for enterprise software financing. TitanX bootstrapped for 19 months, reaching over $5 million in annual recurring revenue before raising institutional capital—a disciplined approach that gave founders leverage in partner selection and allowed the company to prove product-market fit before dilution.

The investment thesis centers on a fundamental inefficiency in B2B sales: 97% of cold calls go unanswered. As AI-generated email floods inboxes and phone data quality deteriorates, outbound sales teams face a compounding crisis of declining connect rates and rising costs per conversation.

TitanX's proprietary scoring model addresses this by analyzing behavioral signals to predict which prospects are most likely to answer at any given time. The platform integrates with existing sales engagement tools, CRM systems, and dialers, providing a predictive intelligence layer without requiring workflow disruption.

"Creating a new category is rare—and even harder in a market where outbound teams are under real pressure," said Braden Snyder in the company announcement. "We have been impressed by TitanX's ability to build the Phone Intent category as a bootstrapped company executing at an exceptional level."

The platform's value proposition resonates particularly strongly as revenue organizations face pressure to achieve more with fewer resources. Traditional volume-based outbound strategies—predicated on making hundreds of dials per day—become economically unsustainable when connect rates hover around 4%. TitanX's approach shifts the paradigm from quantity to quality, enabling sales teams to generate more pipeline without proportional headcount expansion.

For UpData, the deal aligns with its focus on B2B software companies where operational expertise can accelerate growth. The firm invests up to $100 million of equity per company and maintains over $1.5 billion in committed capital, positioning it to support TitanX through multiple growth stages.

TitanX was founded in 2024 by Joey Gilkey, who serves as CEO, alongside COO Justin Middleton. The leadership team brings deep domain expertise in outbound sales, having experienced firsthand the inefficiencies the platform addresses.

The company's core product analyzes multiple data signals—including historical call patterns, time-of-day behaviors, industry-specific trends, and proprietary behavioral indicators—to generate a "Phone Intent" score for each prospect. Sales representatives receive real-time guidance on which contacts to prioritize, dramatically improving conversation rates without changing their existing tools or processes.

The company's growth trajectory stands out in an increasingly competitive sales technology landscape. Achieving over $5 million in ARR as a bootstrapped business—with customer acquisition driven entirely by word-of-mouth and product-led growth—suggests strong product-market fit and high customer satisfaction.

TitanX's customer base spans mid-market and enterprise organizations across multiple verticals, with particular traction in industries where phone-based selling remains critical to revenue generation. The platform's ability to deliver measurable ROI—more conversations per representative, higher pipeline generation, improved sales efficiency—has enabled rapid expansion without traditional enterprise sales motions.

The company positions itself as "foundational infrastructure for modern outbound execution," a positioning that suggests ambitions beyond point-solution status. Future product development will focus on expanding the platform's capabilities across the entire outbound workflow, from prospecting to conversation intelligence to pipeline management.

The TitanX investment arrives amid a broader reckoning in B2B sales technology. After years of adding tools to the sales stack—CRM systems, sales engagement platforms, conversation intelligence, data providers—revenue leaders increasingly question whether more technology actually drives better outcomes.

Several macro trends create tailwinds for TitanX's category-defining approach:

Declining Connect Rates: Industry data suggests cold call connect rates have declined steadily over the past decade, with current benchmarks hovering around 4%. The proliferation of spam calls, improved call screening technology, and changing work patterns (remote work, flexible schedules) have made reaching prospects increasingly difficult.

AI Email Saturation: The democratization of AI writing tools has flooded inboxes with automated outreach, reducing email response rates and forcing sales teams back to the phone as a differentiation channel. However, without improved targeting, phone-based outreach faces similar efficiency challenges.

Economic Pressure on Sales Teams: As companies scrutinize sales and marketing budgets, the cost per conversation and cost per qualified opportunity become critical metrics. Teams that can generate more pipeline with existing headcount gain competitive advantage.

Data Quality Challenges: Despite billions invested in contact data providers, phone number accuracy remains problematic. TitanX's approach—predicting who will answer rather than simply providing phone numbers—addresses a different dimension of the data quality problem.

The sales engagement platform market has seen significant venture investment over the past five years, with companies like Outreach, SalesLoft, and Apollo raising hundreds of millions. However, most platforms focus on workflow automation and activity management rather than predictive intelligence about contact timing and likelihood.

TitanX's "Phone Intent" positioning creates a new category adjacent to—but distinct from—sales engagement, conversation intelligence, and contact data providers. The company's ability to integrate with existing tools rather than replace them reduces adoption friction and positions the platform as complementary infrastructure.

UpData Partners, founded in 1998, operates as a specialized growth equity firm focused exclusively on B2B software and software-enabled businesses. The firm's investment strategy emphasizes companies where the combination of capital and operating experience can accelerate growth trajectories.

The firm closed Fund VII at $608 million in May 2022, its largest fund to date, bringing total committed capital to over $1.5 billion. UpData's approach differs from traditional venture capital in several key dimensions: the firm makes fewer investments per year, writes larger checks (up to $100 million per company), and maintains a hands-on operating model with dedicated advisors supporting portfolio companies.

The firm's portfolio includes companies across multiple B2B software categories, with particular strength in vertical SaaS, infrastructure software, and data analytics. Notable investments include First Insight, DataCore Software, and MD Integrations, reflecting the firm's focus on companies with defensible market positions and clear paths to market leadership.

UpData's investment team averages over 25 years of technology experience, bringing operational expertise in scaling B2B software businesses. The addition of Operating Advisor Elizabeth Cholawsky to TitanX's board signals the firm's intention to provide strategic guidance beyond capital, particularly in areas like go-to-market strategy, product development, and organizational scaling.

The TitanX investment fits UpData's pattern of backing companies at inflection points—businesses that have proven product-market fit and achieved initial scale but require capital and expertise to capture category leadership. The firm's willingness to lead a $27 million Series A for a company founded in 2024 reflects conviction in both the market opportunity and the team's execution capability.

The TitanX financing raises important questions about category creation in enterprise software. Can "Phone Intent" emerge as a distinct, defensible category, or will it be subsumed by larger sales engagement platforms through feature development or acquisition?

Several factors suggest TitanX has a window to establish category leadership. First, the company's 19-month head start as a bootstrapped business allowed it to refine its scoring model and prove ROI with hundreds of customers before competitors recognized the opportunity. Second, the proprietary nature of the scoring algorithm—built on behavioral data accumulated across customer deployments—creates potential network effects and data moat advantages.

However, risks remain. Larger sales engagement platforms with existing customer relationships could develop competing predictive features. Contact data providers could expand into intent scoring. The company must execute rapidly on product development, market education, and customer acquisition to maintain its first-mover advantage.

The broader sales technology market also faces headwinds. Sales leaders increasingly suffer from "tool fatigue," questioning whether additional point solutions justify their cost and complexity. TitanX's integration strategy—working within existing workflows rather than requiring replacement—addresses this concern, but the company must continuously demonstrate measurable ROI to justify its position in the stack.

Strategic M&A represents another dimension of the outlook. The company's announcement specifically mentions M&A as a use of proceeds, suggesting potential roll-up opportunities in adjacent categories. Conversely, TitanX itself could become an acquisition target for larger platforms seeking to add predictive intelligence capabilities.

The investment also signals broader market validation for AI-driven sales intelligence. As generative AI transforms content creation and email outreach, the competitive advantage shifts to better targeting and timing—precisely the problem TitanX addresses. Companies that can help sales teams work smarter rather than harder will likely see sustained demand regardless of economic conditions.

For the outbound sales market, the TitanX financing represents a bet that quality will triumph over quantity. If the company can deliver on its promise of 6x improvement in connect rates while maintaining data quality and expanding product capabilities, it has the potential to fundamentally reshape how B2B sales teams approach prospecting. The next 18-24 months will determine whether Phone Intent becomes a must-have category or a feature absorbed by larger platforms.