TitanX is a predictive sales intelligence platform that uses artificial intelligence to identify which prospects are most likely to answer cold calls, helping B2B sales teams drastically boost connect rates. Pulse 2.0 interviewed TitanX founder and CEO Joey Gilkey to learn more.
Joey Gilkey’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Gilkey said:
“I’ve spent my career in sales and revenue organizations, working across everything from Fortune 100 companies to early-stage startups. Before TitanX, I founded multiple companies—including a sales professional services business I launched in 2017 and sold in 2020, followed by another venture focused on fractional sales leadership. In total, I’ve founded about five companies across services, real estate, and the info product space. Those experiences gave me the operating discipline that ultimately shaped TitanX.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Gilkey shared:
“TitanX came from years of building phone-first go-to-market motions. As automation and AI accelerated, it became clear that the phone would become even more central to business development—especially as other channels got more saturated.”
“We also saw a behavioral truth that nobody was talking about: most prospects don’t answer unknown calls, but about 20% consistently do. That’s a fixed behavioral pattern. You can call someone five times, ten times—you’re not going to change whether they pick up. TitanX identifies that 20% before a rep ever dials, so teams stop wasting time on the 80% who were never going to answer anyway.”
“In 2023, I acquired intellectual property that became the foundation for TitanX. The original solution was powerful but slow and expensive. We invested heavily in R&D to productize it into software that was faster, more affordable, and dramatically more effective.”
Role
What are your primary responsibilities? Gilkey noted:
”As a founder, my job is to maintain focus and make decisions that align with where we’re going. I use what I call a ‘lens’ for decision-making—for a long time it was a $100 million lens, now it’s a $300 million lens. Simple filter: does this decision move us toward that outcome or not?”
“The other major responsibility is building the right team. I’m a believer in building something meaningful even if it means sharing ownership, because talent is the multiplier. That mindset shaped how we built TitanX, especially during the bootstrapped phase.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Gilkey reflected:
“Honestly, my favorite memory has been the days, weeks, and months where my resolve has been tested the most on how much I truly believed in the vision of what we were building. I can distinctly remember a moment where we were redlining in the first 6 months of the business and there was less than $300 left in the business bank account after payroll was paid ($274.60 to be exact) and I looked at my COO and said, ‘This just makes for a better chapter in the story we are writing.’ From that moment on, we took off. Fast forwarding a year almost to the day and we get $27 million invested into that same bank account.”
“The ‘moment’ wasn’t the $27 million part. It was the $274 part, where we knew that we would bet the house and write an incredible story.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Gilkey explained:
“TitanX is the first Phone Intent platform. We help revenue teams create 5x more conversations without adding headcount or forcing higher activity volume.”
“Here’s the reality: in any market, only about 20% of prospects will consistently answer cold calls. The other 80% won’t pick up no matter how many times you dial. That’s not a data problem—it’s human behavior. TitanX surfaces that 20% so reps can prioritize them, shifting performance from one conversation every 30–50 dials to one conversation every few dials.”
“We don’t change where teams get their data, where they dial from, or how many dials they make. We just tell them who to call first. That’s Phone Intent.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Gilkey acknowledged:
“The biggest challenge in the market is the ‘do more with less’ mandate. Targets keep rising, but the traditional levers—adding headcount or pushing more activity—are becoming less effective.”
“At the same time, outbound channels are facing real headwinds. Cold email is saturated. On the phone side, carriers are flagging calls as spam, which changes pickup behavior. The industry’s response has been to dial more—parallel dialers, power dialers, more volume. But here’s the math: if 80% of your list was never going to answer, dialing them faster doesn’t help. It just burns through your TAM faster.”
“TitanX takes the opposite approach. Precision over volume. We help teams focus on the 20% most likely to answer, so they can drive results more efficiently.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Gilkey noted:
“Since launching, we’ve made the platform faster, more scalable, and more effective.”
“AI plays a substantial role in how TitanX works. We aggregate data across sources and build what’s essentially a behavioral profile per contact, then use AI to turn unstructured signals into structured insights—including whether a number is accurate, active, and whether that prospect has the behavioral propensity to answer unknown calls. That’s what we call Phone Intent, and it’s intelligence that doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Gilkey cited:
“Acquiring the IP in 2023 and turning it into a productized platform was foundational. We officially launched TitanX on June 1, 2024, and scaled to $6 million in ARR within 18 months—while remaining bootstrapped and profitable.”
“In our first year, we achieved triple-digit customer growth and added notable enterprise logos, including Workday, Hitachi, Vanta, Clay, and Docebo, along with more than 100 net new customers. We also made key senior leadership hires to support continued growth.”
“Most recently, we raised a $27 million Series A from Updata Partners. We were bootstrapped until shortly before that round, so raising at that point was a strategic decision to accelerate innovation and scale. We’ve grown to around 300 customers.”
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Gilkey highlighted:
“Vanta is a good example. When they came to us, only about 8% of their pipeline was coming from the phone, and their goal was to push that closer to 40%. They were also at 70% target attainment and needed to close the gap within 90 days—without hiring additional headcount.”
“By making fewer dials but making the right dials, they went from 70% attainment to 140%. It changed how they thought about hiring, because the output per rep increased so significantly. That’s the power of Phone Intent—it’s not about working harder, it’s about knowing who’s actually going to pick up.”
Funding/Revenue
Are you able to discuss funding and/or revenue metrics? Gilkey revealed:
“We were bootstrapped until very recently, then raised a $27 million Series A from Updata Partners. As part of that deal, founders were able to take $10 million off the table personally—which is rare at the Series A stage and reflects the strength of the business we’d built.”
“We scaled from zero to $6 million ARR in 18 months, and grew 4x in 2025.”
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Gilkey assessed:
“We’re pursuing a large market—approximately $20 billion in high-value B2B sales organizations. Anyone who cold calls businesses to generate revenue is a potential customer, but we’re specifically focused on mid-market and enterprise sales teams where the efficiency problem is most acute and the ROI is clearest.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Gilkey affirmed:
“We created the Phone Intent category—we coined the term, trademarked it, and built TitanX to define the market. That’s the first differentiator: we’re not competing in an existing category, we’re building one.”
“Beyond that, our differentiation comes from depth. We’ve spent our careers in phone-led go-to-market. We know where the data lives and how to model it at scale. Our approach combines consumer data, carrier and telecom data, and professional data to validate whether a number is accurate, active, and likely to be answered.”
“The market has tried to solve the connect rate problem through volume—dialing more, or dialing multiple people at once with parallel dialers. But that creates tradeoffs: awkward pauses, lack of context, and ultimately, burning through your TAM faster. TitanX scales through precision instead of volume. That’s a fundamentally different approach.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Gilkey concluded:
“Our next milestone is $300 million. We’re focused on scaling the platform and continuing to expand what we’ve built as the category leader in Phone Intent.”
