Zoho

A Light Footprint in U.S. Political Money

Zoho is privately held and controlled by its founding family, which removes the two things that usually generate a political money trail: outside shareholders and a corporate treasury aimed at elections. Public filings and Forbes place the largest ownership stakes with founder Sridhar Vembu's sister, Radha Vembu, at roughly 47.8 percent, and his brother Sekar Vembu, at about 35.2 percent, with co-founder Tony Thomas near 8 percent and Sridhar Vembu himself around 5 percent.[1][2] RedRightBuyer found no Zoho corporate political action committee in federal records and no Zoho profile in OpenSecrets' organization database, which tracks corporate PAC contributions, employee donations grouped by employer, and federal lobbying; it found no federal lobbying registration either.[3] For a firm that sells across the United States, that near-total absence from federal campaign finance and lobbying records is itself the notable finding.

Founded in New Jersey, Run From a Village

Zoho began in 1996 as AdventNet, Inc., a New Jersey startup that Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas built around network-management software; it renamed itself Zoho in 2009 as it shifted toward cloud-based business applications.[2] The company has never taken venture capital, an unusual path for a software firm of its size, and Vembu has made that bootstrapped independence part of Zoho's public identity.[4] Vembu earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from IIT Madras and a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton, then worked briefly at Qualcomm before building the company.[5] In an unusual move for a tech billionaire, he later left the San Francisco Bay Area for Tenkasi, a rural district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and has pushed Zoho to open offices in small towns rather than big cities, part of a personal "de-urbanization" and rural-development mission.[6][7] In January 2025, Vembu stepped down as chief executive to become Zoho's chief scientist and focus on research and that rural mission; co-founder Shailesh Kumar Davey became group CEO in a divisional restructure, with Tony Thomas leading U.S. operations and Vembu's brother Mani Vembu running the flagship Zoho.com division.[5]

Woven Into India's Homegrown-Tech Drive

Beyond anything its founder says, Zoho has become a working part of India's push for technology self-reliance. After a 2023 tender run by the National Informatics Centre under the Digital India Corporation, the government selected Zoho to replace its longtime NIC email system; by late 2025, Indian outlets reported that roughly 1.2 million central-government accounts, including the Prime Minister's Office, had been migrated onto a secure, India-hosted version of Zoho's Workplace suite.[8] The company also reached into India's industrial-policy agenda in hardware: in 2024 it announced a roughly $700 million move into chip manufacturing, formed a semiconductor subsidiary called Silectric, and sought incentives under the government's India Semiconductor Mission, before shelving the plan in 2025, with Vembu saying Zoho lacked confidence in the technology path.[9]

The Founder's Politics Are Indian, Not American

Vembu is politically outspoken, but his engagement runs through Indian politics, not American. In 2021 the Modi government awarded him the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honor, and appointed him to the country's National Security Advisory Board.[5] He is one of the most visible business champions of "Swadeshi," the self-reliance movement that urges India to reduce its dependence on foreign technology and build domestic alternatives, and Indian outlets have described him as a favored figure of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the RSS.[7] As New Delhi increasingly routed official communications onto Zoho software, Prime Minister Modi praised Vembu publicly at a June 2026 conclave.[10] In late 2025, as the United States and India clashed over tariffs and a steep new H-1B visa fee, two senior members of Modi's cabinet, the information technology minister and the home minister, publicly moved their email to Zoho Mail to back the Swadeshi campaign. The home minister ended his announcement with "thank you for your kind attention to this matter," a sign-off President Trump routinely uses, which Indian outlets read as a swipe at him.[11][12] On social media, Vembu has also defended Modi's government against opposition leaders by name.[13] None of this maps neatly onto the American left and right: these are positions inside India's party system, and a stance that reads as nationalist in New Delhi does not translate into a Democratic or Republican identity in the United States.

A Hard Line on Data and Ads

The company position most legible to an American audience is its stance on privacy. Zoho states that it "has not, does not, and will never" sell customer information for advertising, says it has held that line for more than 25 years, and says it uses no third-party trackers on its sites.[14] At a January 2020 event near Austin, Texas, the company pledged to strip third-party trackers from its products and named Google, Facebook, and Twitter as practitioners of what it calls "adjunct surveillance," while aligning itself with Apple's pro-privacy messaging.[15] Vembu said in an interview that Google had approached Zoho to exchange user data and that Zoho declined, comparing the way ad tracking became normal to an era when people smoked indoors without a second thought.[15] The stance predates the current privacy debate and is a fixed part of the company's public identity.

What Zoho Sells

Zoho sells cloud-based business software to companies rather than consumers. Its catalog runs to dozens of integrated applications, including its CRM, Zoho Mail, and the broad Zoho One bundle, alongside the ManageEngine IT-management division and newer products such as the Arattai messaging app, the Ulaa web browser, and an enterprise AI model called Zia.[2] The company crossed $1 billion in annual revenue in its 2023 fiscal year and, per consolidated filings with India's Registrar of Companies, reported operating revenue of about 12,313 crore rupees in fiscal 2025, up nearly 18 percent, or 13,544 crore rupees counting other income; in dollar terms that is on the order of $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion, and because Zoho is private and reports in rupees, the exact figure moves with exchange rates and with which line is counted.[16] In February 2026, marking its 30th anniversary, Zoho said it had passed one million paying customers and more than 150 million users worldwide across its Zoho, ManageEngine, Qntrl, and TrainerCentral brands, following 32 percent customer growth in 2025.[4] It employs about 19,000 people.[4]

Where to Find Them

Zoho sells to businesses worldwide on a subscription basis through its website, zoho.com. Its main U.S. base is the campus outside Austin, Texas, and its global headquarters is in Chennai, India.[2]

Footnotes

[1] Forbes, "Radha Vembu," profile, accessed August 2026. https://www.forbes.com/profile/radha-vembu/

[2] Wikipedia, "Zoho Corporation," accessed August 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoho_Corporation

[3] OpenSecrets, "Organization Profiles," accessed August 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/all-profiles

[4] Zoho Corporation, "Zoho Corporation Surpasses One Million Customers," Business Wire, February 18, 2026. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260218799668/en/Zoho-Corporation-Surpasses-One-Million-Customers

[5] YourStory, "Sridhar Vembu steps down as CEO of Zoho Corp," January 28, 2025. https://yourstory.com/2025/01/zoho-corp-ceo-sridhar-vembu-steps-down-as-ceo

[6] Patrick Moorhead, Forbes, "Zoho: Running A Software Enterprise From A Village," January 26, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2023/01/26/zoho--running-a-software-enterprise-from-a-village/

[7] The News Minute, "Decoding Zoho's Sridhar Vembu: The software czar who became the Sangh's Swadeshi mascot," March 12, 2026. https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/decoding-zohos-sridhar-vembu-the-software-czar-who-became-the-sanghs-swadeshi-mascot

[8] "Centre has shifted email IDs of 12 lakh employees to Zoho's platform," The Economic Times, October 2025. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/centre-has-shifted-email-ids-of-12-lakh-employees-to-zohos-platform-report/articleshow/124544866.cms

[9] "Zoho shelves $700-mn semiconductor chip plant plan: Sridhar Vembu," Business Standard, May 1, 2025. https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/zoho-shelves-700-mn-semiconductor-chip-plant-plan-sridhar-vembu-125050100813_1.html

[10] National Herald, "Why Zoho is back in focus after Modi's endorsement of Sridhar Vembu," June 23, 2026. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/why-zoho-is-back-in-focus-after-modis-endorsement-of-sridhar-vembu

[11] Deccan Herald, "IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw switches to Zoho in support of PM Modi's call for Swadeshi," 2025. https://www.deccanherald.com/technology/it-minister-ashwini-vaishnaw-switches-to-zoho-in-support-of-pm-modis-call-for-swadeshi-3739442

[12] Deccan Herald, "Union Home Minister Amit Shah switches to Zoho Mail," October 2025. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/union-home-minister-amit-shah-switches-to-zoho-mail-3756865

[13] ThePrint, "Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu compares Modi to Priyanka. One is a classy leader, he says," accessed August 2026. https://theprint.in/feature/zoho-founder-sridhar-vembu-compares-modi-to-priyanka-one-is-a-classy-leader-he-says/2999940/

[14] Zoho, "Privacy at Zoho," company statement, accessed August 2026. https://www.zoho.com/blog/index.php/general/a-glance-at-privacy-at-zoho.html

[15] SoftwareReviews, "Zoho Says Surveillance Tech Is Immoral, Aligns Ideologically With Apple," February 4, 2020. https://www.softwarereviews.com/research/zoho-says-surveillance-tech-is-immoral-aligns-ideologically-with-apple

[16] Entrackr, "Zoho reports Rs 12,313 Cr revenue and Rs 3,191 Cr profit in FY25," April 8, 2026. https://entrackr.com/fintrackr/zoho-reports-rs-12313-cr-revenue-and-rs-3191-cr-profit-in-fy25-11701761