Meet Sridhar Vembu, Zoho's billionaire founder who lives in a Tamil Nadu village

Zoho, a software company founded by IIT Madras alumnus Sridhar Vembu, has made a profit of Rs 2,749 crore in the financial year 2022-2023. The bootstrapped firm has become the Indian internet company with the highest profit this financial year. The second most profitable company was another bootstrapped giant -- Zirodha. Zoho's power-packed performance was because of a giant leap in the company's operational revenue that saw a 28 percent increase this financial year. Zoho's operational revenue rose from Rs 5,230 crore to Rs 6,711 crore. The expenses, however, rose only 18 percent. In FY21, the company's profit was Rs 1,918 crore. Zoho has over 12,000 employees in various countries.

Sridhar Vembu was born in 1968. He founded Zoho in the mid-1990s. According to Forbes, as of 2021, he is the 55th richest person in India with a net worth of 3.75 billion dollars. He is also one of the few business leaders to ever receive Padma Shri, India's third-highest civilian award. Vembu's family lived in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur district.

Growing up, Vembu was an excellent student. He later graduated with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT-Madras. He later completed his MS and PhD from the United States. He started his career in the United States' Silicon Valley, where he worked for Qualcomm as a wireless engineer. He later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.

He, and his two brothers, started a software development firm called AdventNet in 1996. It became Zoho Corporation in 2009. The company provides software solutions to customers.

Vembu never raised capital after selling equity for the company. As of 2020, he held 88 percent stake in Zoho.

Vembu also has an affinity towards rural development. His company has offices in rural Mathalamparai of Tamil Nadu's Tenkasi district. He also has an office in suburban Renigunta.

He also runs Zoho school where he gives software training to people from non-technical backgrounds.

Sridhar Vembu has now shifted base to the Mathalamparai village. He loves to walk in the village, visit ponds and local creeks and ride an electric rickshaw.

He says he won't be able to live in big cities now that he has tasted life in a village.

In a social media post in 2010, he said he had no interest in exit or liquidity as he didn't want to run away from the business.