Engineers behind Arattai have been perfecting this technology for over 20 years, says Zoho CEO Mani Vembu

Zoho CEO Manikandan Vembu

As Zoho’s in-house messaging platform Arattai gathers momentum, buoyed by endorsements from cabinet ministers and industry leaders, CEO Mani Vembu has pointed to the technology’s long gestation as a key differentiator.

“The engineers behind Arattai have been perfecting this technology for over 20 years,” Vembu said in an interview with Moneycontrol, highlighting a behind-the-scenes effort that predates the app’s public emergence.

He added that the renewed internal focus on product refinement reflects Zoho’s broader ambition to build secure, self-reliant alternatives to global incumbents such as WhatsApp.

Developed entirely in India, Arattai has recently seen a surge in public attention, amplified by growing interest in locally developed digital infrastructure.

Inside Zoho, this momentum is said to have triggered a new wave of investment in feature development and performance upgrades.

Zoho, co-founded by Sridhar Vembu, has consistently positioned itself as an advocate of technological self-sufficiency, building a full stack of enterprise tools without external funding. Arattai, originally launched in 2021, forms part of the firm’s wider push into secure communication tools tailored to the Indian market.

“While all the excitement is there, on one side we also look at all the challenges we face and keep our focus on fixing them. The engineering team is really working hard...they are continuously working on serving the demand,” said Mani Vembu,  “We all want to support them now.”

Vembu added that the spotlight has only strengthened the team’s resolve to stay grounded and improve faster.

At the heart of Arattai’s evolution is a close-knit group of engineers who have been with Zoho for nearly two decades, building, refining, and reimagining the company’s messaging framework.

“The engineers behind Arattai have been perfecting this technology for over 20 years,” Vembu told Moneycontrol. “Jerry (Jeri John ), who heads the product, has been with us for more than 20 years. He’s also the product manager for SalesIQ and Cliq, our business messaging platform. Srini, who leads our messaging framework, and Maria, who heads our audio-video platforms, have also been with us for over two decades.”

This continuity, Vembu said, allows Zoho to reuse and scale its core technologies efficiently.

“For instance, our new collaboration platform Vani uses the same backend messaging and audio-video framework that supports Arattai and Cliq,” he said. “It’s the same technology applied across different use cases, which helps us build efficiency and reliability.”

Launched in 2021, Arattai, Tamil for “chat", was designed as a privacy-first, India-built alternative to WhatsApp.

The app has seen a surge in interest after ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw, Dharmendra Pradhan, Nirmala Sitharaman, and Piyush Goyal publicly endorsed Arattai alongside Zoho’s office suite and MapmyIndia’s Mappls app as indigenous alternatives to Big Tech offerings.

At Zoho, the enthusiasm has sparked a renewed focus on product improvement.

“We know we must keep improving Arattai to sustain the momentum,” said Vembu. “Internally, we’ve created feedback loops where employees can anonymously raise issues or criticize design and functionality. ‘Zoho runs on Zoho,’ so every employee uses our own applications daily and flags issues even before customers do.”

Even as Arattai gains attention in the market, Vembu insists the team’s mindset remains the same, focused, humble, and relentless.

“Our engineers don’t have time to celebrate,” he said with a smile. “They’re busy perfecting the product, and that’s what keeps us moving forward.”