Zoho invests ₹70 crores in supporting Indian Sovereign Technology

Zoho Corporation has announced an investment of ₹70 crores (around US$7.3 million) in the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). The investment will assist ONDC with its mission of developing sovereign tech within and for Indian commerce. It is the latest move by Zoho to support retail operations in India.

In India, around 12 million people earn a living from selling or reselling goods. And yet only 15,000 of these sellers use e-commerce solutions (around 0.125%). The Indian Government founded the ONDC to change this. It aims to increase the penetration of e-retail to its maximum potential in India, from its current level of around 4.3%.

Sivaramakrishnan Iswaran, CEO of Zoho Payment Technologies and Global Head of Finance and Operations BU, Zoho, commented, “India’s economy depends heavily on MSMEs. Yet they face challenges on all fronts—from limited market access to structural constraints imposed by conventional digital platforms that rarely align with their unique needs. ONDC, which is an excellent initiative, gives power back to MSMEs, enabling them to expand their customer reach and achieve sustainable growth.”

“Zoho shares with ONDC its philosophy of building sovereign technology to champion accessibility, flexibility, and inclusion of businesses of every size. We further believe that the private sector must play its part in nation building. In alignment with this vision, Zoho is proud to contribute to this ambitious initiative, strengthening the country’s Digital Public Infrastructure and paving the way for broader, more equitable participation in the digital economy.”

What is the ONDC building

ONDC is building an open digital infrastructure to democratise commerce in India. Its open-network approach aims to improve:

• Interoperability between platforms and participants
• Inclusivity for businesses of all sizes
• Efficiency across multiple sectors

How ONDC is expanding in practice

By reducing fragmentation, lowering entry barriers, and improving trust in digital transactions, ONDC is designed to help more sellers participate and grow. In FY 2025–26, the network enabled 218 million transactions. Underlining its role as a piece of Digital Public Infrastructure for Indian eCommerce’s next phase of growth.

Key to this growth has been the emphasis on mobile transactions. Which has grown consistently since January 2023, rising to 11.2 million network orders, compared to 3.77 million retail orders.

Examples of ONDC-enabled adoption and outcomes include:

• Retail: ONDC DigiDukaan onboarded 10,000+ kirana stores within months of launch, accelerating the digitisation of general trade procurement.
• Rural commerce: Order volumes for Kisaans, Karigars, and rural artisans grew 11× in FY 2025–26 through ONDC-enabled commerce models.
• Logistics: The FIFO fleet allocation model scaled 50× within six months, improving utilisation and earnings opportunities for gig workers.
• Mobility: Metro ticketing powered by ONDC is live across nine metro systems and available through 25+ apps.

Building Indian eCommerce strength

The investment follows the launch of two significant retail platforms for Indian organisations in 2024. It first launched Zakya, a unified retail solution targeted at SMEs in India that enables them to manage their operation, including POS, inventory and shipping. Later in the same year, it launched Vikra eCommerce, a comprehensive seller application on the ONDC Network.

Zoho also supports Indian and global retail organisations with applications such as Zoho ERP, Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory and Zoho Commerce. This latest investment will strengthen Zoho’s ties to Indian digital sovereignty and the Indian Government. Before this, it has mainly been financial institutions joining ONDC.

The investment will help ONDC continue to expand its network ecosystem, accelerate adoption, and enable more businesses to participate in the digital economy. It isn’t entirely clear how the investment will be used to achieve this.

Enterprise Times: What does this mean?

While a multinational company, Zoho is proud of its Indian heritage. Since its founding, it has invested in its local economy through transnational localism. While it has taken this strategy abroad as its grown its international operations, it continues to develop the concept in its home nation. Its investment in ONDC is perhaps the first significant investment it has made in India as a whole. This shows the way for other vendors.

What is perhaps missing from this announcement are some finer details about how ONDC will use the investment. Also, there is no comment from the ONDC leadership about the Zoho investment.

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