Zoho, a global business software company, is planning to move its headquarters from the Bay Area in California to Austin.
The company, which employs more than 7,000 people across 12 offices, has purchased a 375-acre plot of land in southeast Austin a few miles from the airport where it plans to build out a 100,000 square foot campus.
The new headquarters will be home to existing local employees, and the company plans to hire hundreds of Austin area workers in coming years. While many tech jobs strongly encourage or require traditional degrees, Zoho says it has an in-house tech program -- Zoho University -- and it plans to work closely with local schools and colleges to help teach students skills.
Zoho was founded in 1996, and it grew without venture capital funding. It brans itself as the operating system for business, and it offers a wide variety of sales, marketing accounting and back office software and apps. It competes with Salesforce, Microsoft and other business software makers. It has 45 million users, and it's international headquarters is in Chennai, India.
Earlier this year, the company launched in Australia.
"As a private company that's been in operation for more than 22 years, we are invested in long term growth and crafting the very best business solutions for our customers," Zoho founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu said in a prepared statement. "Without the pressures of shareholders, we can grow with purpose. It is our imperative to invest in our employees and the communities we are in, while making sure our software remains accessible to every type of business, from small to large, whether they exist in yet-to-be-developed, emerging or fully developed markets."
The company, which is in the midst of its Zoholics annual users conference in Austin, has also announced a new commerce platform that sits atop its operating system, Zoho One.
