Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more

Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more

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From a Network Management company called AdventNet in 1996 to introducing ‘Zoho Remotely’ to facilitate ‘work from home’ in 2020, the company ‘Zoho Corporation Private Limited’ has touched almost every corner of software development and web-based business implements. Zoho is an Indian software development company and IT business corporation which began its operations in 1996.

Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas Founded Zoho. Recently on the occasion of India's 72nd Republic Day (2021), Sridhar Vembu has been bestowed the Prestigious Padma Shri.

Know more about Zoho Success Story, Zoho Business Model, Funding, Revenue, Competitors, Company Profile and Growth of Zoho.

Zoho – Company Highlights

Startup Name Zoho
Sector Software Development
Headquarters Chennai India
Founded 1996
Founder Sridhar Vembu, Tony Thomas
Parent Organization Zoho Corporation Private Limited
Valuation ~$1 Billion
Profit Rs.516 crore (FY19)
Operating Revenue Rs.3308 crore (FY19)
Website www.zoho.com
contact info@zohocorp.com

About Zoho
Zoho - Products
Zoho – Founders and Team
Zoho – Vision and Mission
Zoho – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Zoho – Funding and Investors
Zoho – Growth and Revenue
Zoho – Business Model and Revenue Model
Zoho – Competitors
Zoho – Future Plans
Zoho - FAQs

About Zoho

Zoho Corporation Private Limited is an Indian company, founded by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in 1996. The company started its operations from a small apartment in the suburbs of Chennai. Zoho was initially named ‘AdventNet’, and the only service offered was Network Management.

AdventNet was doing well, and the company acquired clients from the Bay area and Silicon Valley. Cisco was one of their first clients. AdventNet expanded its operations in Japan by June 2001. However, the 2001 dot com bubble burst, came as a huge blow to the company. In 2002, the number of customers was reduced from 150 to just 3.

This is the time when Sridhar realized that to survive, the company needs to diversify its services. AdventNet thus started to offer many other services other than network management. Today Zoho offers over 45 software products. AdventNet was renamed Zoho Corporation in 2009.

Zoho - Products

Zoho Corporation has been divided into the following three divisions -

  • Zoho.com - This division offers products related to Online business, and productivity and collaboration applications.
  • ManageEngine - Offers Enterprise Management tools.
  • WebNMS is the IoT software division of Zoho Corporation.

Presently Zoho offers over 45 products.

Zoho CRM - Released in 2005. Zoho CRM (customer relationship management software) is being used by over 250000 businesses across 180 countries. Zoho CRM helps businesses manage their sales, marketing and customer service activities all from a single platform.

Zoho Writer - This is a cloud-based word processor. Zoho writer allows one to create documents and collaborate with the team members in real-time.

Zoho Sheet, Zoho Creator, Zoho Show, Zoho Meeting, and Zoho Docs are some other popular products by Zoho. Zoho reached one million users by the year 2008.  With over 13 million users in 2014, Zoho became one of the largest subscription businesses.

Zoho eventually propelled in almost every sector of sales, finance, communication, and marketing. The company brought in a greater digital transformation with more than 50 million users in 2019, and introduced ‘Zoho Remotely’, a toolkit to expedite work-from-home.

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Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more
Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more
Zoho User's Growth

Zoho – Founders and Team

Zoho was founded by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in 1996

Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more
Sridhar Vembu, Zoho founder

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu comes from a humble background. Sridhar studied in a Tamil Medium Government School till 10th standard. He graduated in 1989 from IIT Madras. Sridhar received a scholarship to do MS and Ph.D. in Electrical engineering from Princeton University in New Jersey. He started his career in Qualcomm in 1994. Two years later in 1996, he started his own venture AdventNet along with his brothers and Tony Thomas, who is also an IIT Madras graduate. Sridhar Vembu was awarded the Padma Shri, on the occasion of India's 72nd Republic Day (2021). Sridhar is the 59th richest man in India, according to Forbes 2020.

Zoho cofounder Tony Thomas worked at Bell Labs, before founding AdventNet. Sridhar and Tony both had similar interests in business and technology which led them to build their massive venture. Now, Zoho operates with around 10,000 employees.


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Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more

Zoho – Vision and Mission

Zoho’s vision is to create superior software to solve all business problems. The company’s investment is more in developing its products and customer support rather than focusing on sales and marketing.

Zoho – Business Model and Revenue Model

‘Marketing through Engineering’ is Zoho’s ultimate business model. It allows people to use their applications with no initial cost and it neither earns through advertisements. Zoho has over 10,000 employees and a turnover of $590 million as of 2020.

It’s only the products’ quality that is behind the successful business model. Zoho, with its ‘freemium model’, allows for a free sign-up initially, followed by specific charges for its premium upgrades.

“A lot of the cloud companies are moving away from the freemium model. We still believe in it strongly because, for us, the economics is, we want to get as many users as possible first. Get them to use our product strongly — we actually track usage very heavily — and then since we have a portfolio, they will discover more and more of the Zoho suite, and then they end up buying something”, says Sridhar Vembu,  founder, and CEO of Zoho.
Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more
Zoho Logo

The name ‘Zoho’ was the result of the abbreviation “Small Office Home Office”, says founder Sridhar Vembu. Before, the company’s tagline is ‘Made in India. Made for the world’.


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Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more

Zoho – Funding and Investors

Major investors in Zoho are Zenedge, Zentron Labs and Boston Motors. Its recent funding was raised on May 2020, for an undisclosed amount led by Boston Motors.

Funding details are given below:

Date Stage Amount Lead Investors
May 30, 2020 Seed Round - Boston Motors - Boston Motors
Aug 23, 2019 Seed Round - Boston Motors - Boston Motors
Dec 20, 2016 Seed Round - Zentron Labs $516K Zentron Labs
Sep 08, 2016 Series C - Zenedge $6.2M Zenedge
Nov 24, 2014 Corporate Round - Zentron Labs - Zentron Labs
Jan 31, 2013 Seed Round - Zentron Labs $524K Zentron Labs

Zoho – Growth and Revenue

Zoho’s profit increased by 26.3% to Rs.516 crores in FY19 and has seen a 37.1% growth in operating revenue to Rs.3308 crores in the fiscal year 2019. The company has made a revenue of Rs.121.07 crores only from India, excluding the export of services.

Zoho has 60 million users worldwide and counts Levi's, Amazon, Philips, Whirlpool, Ola, Xiaomi, and Zomato among its clientele.

Zoho utilized all its assets effectively that resulted in its overall turnover ratio of 0.93. Zoho has made a total of five investments in companies such as Boson Motors, Zentron Labs, and Zenedge.


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Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more

Zoho – Competitors

Major competitors of Zoho are Freshworks, Salesforce, Oracle, Pipedrive, HubSpot, and QuickBase.

Zoho – Future Plans

Sridhar Vembu says that the company will focus on expanding its distribution and cloud connectivity to rural areas to boost the local economy. Zoho’s vision is to restore economic viabilities of rural regions through effective cloud technology, i.e., ‘Cloud-enabled rural revival’.

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Zoho - Founders Story, Business Model, Funding and more

Zoho - FAQs

How much is Zoho Revenue 2020?

The revenue of Zoho in 2020 is US$590 million.

Is Zoho Indian Company?

Yes. Zoho is an Indian company headquartered in Chennai, India

What is Zoho Tagline?

Zoho's tagline is "Made in India. Made for the world"

Who is Sridhar Vembu?

Sridhar Vembu is the Founder of Zoho. He was awarded the Padma Shri, on the occasion of India's 72nd Republic Day (2021).

What does Zoho company do?

Zoho is a SaaS company that offers online software, including e-mail, word processors, spreadsheets, wikis, and even customer relationship management.

What companies use Zoho?

Advanced Technology Services, Inc., ALTUS, Inc., Amazon India are the top companies that use Zoho CRM.


Author: Mandagiri Praveen Kumar Reddy

Source : https://startuptalky.com/zoho-success-story/


Date : 2021-08-26T13:05:00.000Z

1 Comments

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