Zoho Corporation is an Indian multinational software company that develops cloud-based business software, including workplace productivity and collaboration software, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and business management tools. Its main products include Zoho CRM, Zoho One, Zoho Workplace and Zoho Books. The company also operates ManageEngine, which develops enterprise IT management and security software.
Founded in 1996 as AdventNet, the company initially developed network management software and adopted the Zoho Corporation name in 2009. It is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and remains privately held, having grown without external investment.
In January 2025, co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey succeeded Sridhar Vembu as CEO, while Vembu became chief scientist. By February 2026, Zoho had more than one million paying organizations and 150 million users worldwide.
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History
From 1996 to 2009, the company was known as AdventNet, Inc., founded in New Jersey, US, and initially provided a network management software called WebNMS.
AdventNet expanded operations into Japan in 2001 and shifted focus to small and medium businesses (SMBs). In 2002, the company started its enterprise IT management software division known as ManageEngine.
Zoho CRM was released in 2005, along with Zoho Writer, the company's first office suite product. Zoho Projects, Creator, Sheet, and Show were released in 2006. It expanded into the collaboration space with the release of Zoho Docs and Zoho Meeting in 2007. In 2008, the company added invoicing and mail applications. In 2009, the company was renamed Zoho Corporation after its online office suite. The company remains privately owned.
In 2014, Zoho had its first annual user conference, called Zoholics, in India. In 2017, Zoho launched Zoho One, a platform of over 40 integrated applications. In 2020, it launched Zoho Workplace, a suite combining its existing productivity, collaboration, and communication software.
In 2023, ERP software company Gofrugal, founded by Sridhar Vembu's brother Kumar Vembu, merged with Zoho. In 2025, Zoho announced the launch of its large language model, Zia, for enterprise AI applications.
Following a government tender won by Zoho in September 2023, all 1.2 million email accounts of Indian central government employees were migrated from the NIC-based system to Zoho Mail by 2025, while office productivity tools were shifted to the Zoho Workplace suite.
In January 2025, co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey succeeded Sridhar Vembu as group CEO, while Vembu transitioned to the role of chief scientist to focus on research and development. In January 2026, Zoho launched Zoho ERP, an enterprise resource planning product developed at its Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu office. The same month, the company opened its first data centers in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Products and services
Zoho develops software for sales, finance, customer service, marketing, human resources, productivity, IT management, collaboration, and analytics.
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM, released in 2005, is the company's customer relationship management software for sales, marketing and customer engagement. By 2022, Zoho described CRM and CRM Plus as its largest revenue-generating product lines.
Zoho One
Zoho One is an integrated business software suite launched in 2017. It brings together more than 45 applications covering areas such as sales, marketing, finance, human resources and analytics. By 2022, it had become Zoho's largest revenue-generating suite after CRM and CRM Plus and was used by about 50,000 businesses.
Zoho Books
Zoho Books is cloud-based accounting software launched in 2011. It includes invoicing, expense management, payments, bank transaction tracking and multi-currency accounting. The product has since been adapted to local tax and accounting requirements in several markets and forms part of Zoho's wider finance software portfolio. In 2024, Zoho identified Books as one of its main drivers of revenue growth in India and one of its fastest-growing products by customer numbers.
Zoho Workplace
Zoho Workplace is a productivity and collaboration suite that includes Zoho Mail, Writer, Sheet, Show, WorkDrive, Cliq and Meeting. A more tightly integrated version of the suite was introduced in 2020 as a competitor to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. In 2024, Zoho reported Workplace as one of its fastest-growing products by customer numbers.
ManageEngine
ManageEngine is Zoho Corporation's enterprise IT management division. Its products cover IT service management, endpoint management, network monitoring, identity management and cybersecurity. In the 2025 financial year, ManageEngine generated ₹4,863 crore, or about 39% of Zoho Corporation's operating revenue, compared with ₹7,051 crore from the Zoho application suite.
Other products
Other products include Zoho Desk for customer service, Zoho People for human resources, Zoho Creator for low-code application development, Zoho Projects for project management and Zoho Analytics for business intelligence. Zoho also develops consumer-oriented products including the Arattai messaging service and the Ulaa web browser.
Digital sovereignty
Zoho has become associated with efforts in India to promote domestically developed technology and digital sovereignty. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) selected Zoho through a competitive procurement process to help operate its upgraded cloud-based government email system. By April 2026, about 1.67 million government email accounts had been migrated to the Zoho-backed platform. The government has described the system as supporting data sovereignty, with its main and backup data centres located in India and government data not replicated outside the country.
Zoho has also promoted data sovereignty outside India. In 2026, it announced a UK data centre allowing customers to keep their data within the country, responding to demand for local data residency and regulatory compliance.
Security issues
Zoho has been criticized for multiple security issues. In 2021, hackers exploited vulnerabilities in a password management and single sign-on system provided by Zoho's ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus. In January 2022, the vulnerability was used to target the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and data of 515,000 people was compromised, with the ICRC admitting that it did not apply a security patch released by Zoho in September 2021.
In 2025, an SQL injection vulnerability allowed attackers to run unauthenticated SQL queries, potentially giving access to sensitive information in databases hosted by Zoho. The same year, Zoho's messaging app, Arattai, was criticized for lacking end-to-end encryption for chats.
In February 2026, a North Korean group released tools that use a backdoor to Zoho WorkDrive to deploy malware.
Locations
Zoho is headquartered in Chennai, India. As of 2025, it has offices in over 80 countries, including China, Singapore, and Japan. The bulk of its operations is carried out from its office in Chennai.
Its US headquarters was in Pleasanton, California until it was moved to Del Valle, Texas, in 2019. The research and development campus is in Estancia IT Park, Chennai. Zoho opened an office in Tenkasi in 2011, where its product Zoho Desk was built. Since 2018, Zoho also operates from an office in Renigunta, Andhra Pradesh.
In February 2022, Zoho opened an office in New Braunfels, Texas, United States. In April 2022, Zoho opened an office in McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, the company's third location in Texas.
In 2023, Zoho opened Zoho Labs R&D divisions in Nagpur, India, for developing data center hardware. As of 2025, Zoho operates data centers in 18 global locations, including Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai in India.