Zoho, one of the most successful Indian SaaS company, has today announced that it has invested nearly $10 million in five startups. The company has invested in machine learning and computer vision technology startup Zentron Labs and medical devices maker vTitan.
The funding will help the founders of the company during the research and development phase. There is no further information available regarding the companies in which Zoho invested and how much.
Talking about the investment, Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, said,
We are investing in companies that think like Zoho. We are not venture capitalists and exits are not what we are looking for through these investments.
One of the earliest multi-product companies from India, Zoho has followed a philosophy of building products rather than acquiring some of the companies that do so. However, the enterprise software market is getting more mature and saturated, and so, Sridhar Vembu believes that consolidation is the way forward for the market.
In line with that, Zoho is now scouting to acquire small technology startups in the space of artificial intelligence and data analytics, among similar other spaces. But, the company is not in a hurry to do so and will only go ahead with the acquisition once they find a right fit. Talking about this, Vembu said,
We talk to a lot of entrepreneurs but what makes the cut for Zoho is the acquisition needs to be tucked in to integrate into our product portfolio and we find a cultural fit in the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs who solely build a product startup with an intention of exit will not fit in Zoho culture.
We see ourselves as a technology company. Today, medical equipment are software-enabled, they take a lot of data inputs, and that is where we want to play a role in the integration of product and software.
Zentron Labs automates processes that require visual checking. It uses industrial cameras in conjunction with computer vision algorithms to deliver innovative and custom machine-vision solutions that perform automated visual inspection. On the other hand, vTitan is engaged in the development, manufacturing, distribution, and sales of a broad range of medical devices and consumables used in global healthcare markets.
