Zoho Corporation
Zoho Corporation is an India-based, privately held software company behind the Zoho suite of business applications (CRM, finance, HR, analytics, collaboration) and the ManageEngine IT-management line. Per Wikipedia it has grown without outside investment.
Overview
- Founded: 1996 as AdventNet, Inc.; renamed Zoho Corporation in 2009. Co-founders include Sridhar Vembu, Tony Thomas and Shailesh Kumar Davey (Wikipedia).
- Headquarters: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
- Leadership: Zoho’s press page (zoho.com/press.html, 2026-10-08) captions Shailesh Davey as “CEO, Zoho Corp.”; the 2026-02-18 press release quotes Sridhar Vembu as “Co-founder and Chief Scientist”. Wikipedia dates the CEO change to January 2025 (not primary-verified). Zoho’s about page (zoho.com/aboutus.html, 2026-10-07) lists Shailesh Kumar Davey as CEO, Sridhar Vembu as Chief Scientist and Manikandan Vembu as head of Zoho.com; the 2025-07-17 release quotes Mani Vembu on AI and privacy (its title was not extracted; the earlier “CEO” label for him is unresolved).
- Ownership: privately held, “has grown without external investment” (Wikipedia).
- Scale: Zoho press releases dated 2026-02-18 (Austin TX and New Delhi datelines, primary): “more than one million paying customers and more than 150 million users”, with 32% year-on-year customer growth and 20% revenue growth in 2025. FY2025 revenue/net income in INR and headcount over 18,000 are Wikipedia-only (Zoho does not publish them on its site).
Key products
- Zoho CRM , Zoho One (45+ apps per zoho.com/one, 2026-10-07; Wikipedia says 40+), Zoho Workplace, Zoho Books.
- Zoho Analytics: the BI product.
- Zoho Community: community platform.
- ManageEngine: IT management division.
Timeline 2025-2026
- 2025-01: CEO transition (Wikipedia only).
- 2025-07-17 (Austin, TX): Zoho launched Zia LLM in 1.3B, 2.6B and 7B parameter sizes, two speech-to-text models for English and Hindi, 25+ prebuilt agents (for example Customer Service Agent, Revenue Growth Specialist, Deal Analyzer, Candidate Screener), Zia Agent Studio (no-code/low-code, 700+ Zoho actions), an Agent Marketplace and an MCP server exposing actions from 15+ apps. Early access then, GA targeted for end of 2025 (Zoho news release).
- 2026-02-18: 30th anniversary, one million paying customers (Zoho press release). 2026-01-13: first UAE data centres (Zoho press list).
AI strategy (as of 2026-10-05)
Zoho builds its own models and keeps customer data on its own servers rather than sending it to external AI vendors (vendor claim). Agents are exposed both inside Zoho apps and via MCP to third-party agents, with existing permission structures retained.
Sources
- https://www.zoho.com/press.html ; https://www.zoho.com/news/zoho-corporation-surpasses-one-million-customers.html ; https://www.zoho.com/news/zoho-corporation-marks-30-years-now-supports-over-one-million-organisations.html (primary, 2026-10-08; found via https://www.zoho.com/sitemap.xml)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoho_Corporation (secondary; fetched 2026-10-05)
- https://www.zoho.com/news/zoho-launches-zia-llm-and-deepens-ai-portfolio-with-prebuilt-agents-custom-agent-builder-mcp-and-marketplace.html (fetched 2026-10-05)
Open items
- Wikipedia-only: FY2025 INR revenue and net income, headcount, January 2025 CEO date, Indian government email migration. Zoho publishes no financials; tried zoho.com press, about and news pages and sitemap.
- Mani Vembu’s exact title in the 2025-07 release is unclear; Zoho’s press page names Davey as CEO.
- Unverified, removed from body: Zoho CRM release year 2005; Zia Agents in the SalesIQ summer 2026 release (blog seen only as a search result); Indian government email migration.
- GA status of Zia LLM and Agent Studio after end of 2025 not verified (July 2025 release said early access, GA expected towards end of 2025).
- Verified 2026-10-07: https://www.zoho.com/aboutus.html (AdventNet 1996, renamed 2009, Chennai HQ), https://www.zoho.com/one/ (45+ apps), release 2025-07-17 (Zia LLM 1.3B/2.6B/7B; English and Hindi ASR; 25+ agents; 700+ actions; MCP for 15+ apps).