US-based data-security firm Cohesity plans to invest more than USD 1 billion in India over the next five years, Chief Executive Officer and President Sanjay Poonen told BW Businessworld. This will be one of the company’s largest commitments to a single market as it expands engineering, customer operations and early-career hiring across the country.
The investment comes as the California-based company opens a new regional office in Bengaluru, a move Poonen said will accelerate Cohesity’s product development and customer engagement from India, which has now become the company’s largest employee base globally.
“We announced that we will spend at least a billion dollars in India,” Poonen said, adding that the country has become a primary engine for talent and product innovation.
Cohesity employs about 2,200 people in India, across Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai and Delhi, after absorbing a large workforce through its recent acquisition of Veritas’ data-protection business in December 2024.
Talent, Hiring And India’s Expanded Role
Poonen said India has overtaken the United States in employee numbers, pointing to the country’s shift from a support location to a centre that leads global engineering and product strategy. “When I started my tech career, the primary development was in the US and secondary in India. That’s changed,” he said. “In many cases, primary development is now in India.”
Cohesity now intends to scale teams in engineering, support, product, design, operations and go-to-market functions. The company is also aggressively hiring new graduates as it builds deeper capabilities in AI-powered data security.
The new Bengaluru office can accommodate over 550 employees, though the current strength is closer to 300. Pune remains the company’s largest site in India, with well over 1,000 employees, said the CEO.
Reflecting on his tenure at Cohesity, Poonen said the company has moved from roughly 400-500 engineers in India three years ago to more than 2,200 employees today, driven partly by the Veritas acquisition.
He also shared how dramatically the revenue mix has changed. Three years ago, around 80 per cent of Cohesity’s revenue came from North America and only 20 per cent from international markets, with India contributing only a “very small” portion of that international segment. Cohesity had just one to three people in its India sales team at the time.
Today, international revenue accounts for 50 per cent of the company’s global revenue, and Poonen said India now contributes a “good part” of that growth. He added that India revenue is now 10 to 20 times higher than when he took over as CEO.
He expects the billion-dollar investment to make Cohesity the “go-to employer” in data security and data protection in India.
Cohesity serves more than 600 customers in India, including four of the country’s five largest banks and three major telecom operators. The company is also expanding among IT service providers and public-sector organisations.
Across both India and global markets, Cohesity’s strongest sectors include financial services, public sector and government clients, technology companies, telecommunications and healthcare. While healthcare spending in India is lower than in the US or Europe, Poonen said rising ransomware risk is pushing hospitals and pharma firms to upgrade security infrastructure.
AI, Cybersecurity Threats And Product Direction
Describing 2025 as a “defining year” for global cyberattacks, Poonen said Indian companies face the same nation-state threats seen in the US, Japan and the US.“We advise clients to assume they will get attacked and ask how quickly they can recover,” he said.
Cohesity positions itself at the intersection of AI and security, and Poonen said the company has been building AI-driven capabilities in partnership with Nvidia, one of its investors. Cohesity’s AI assistant, Gaia, is designed to help organisations analyse and secure the data the company protects.
The CEO also said agent-based AI, or “non-human identities”, will become a major security consideration as enterprises automate more tasks. “An identity in the future is not just a human being, it’s an agent,” he said. “And you have to secure that too.”
Regulations, Sovereign Cloud And India-Specific Requirements
On the freshly notified Digital Personal Data Protection Rules (DPDP) and India’s AI guidelines, Poonen said emerging regulatory frameworks strengthen demand for Cohesity’s offerings.
He expects most major countries, including India, to push for sovereign cloud capabilities, requiring sensitive data and AI workloads to remain within national borders. Cohesity’s products, he said, are already built to support such compliance-driven requirements across banking, public sector and telecom customers.
Bengaluru: Poonen’s Hometown, Opportunity And Concerns
Poonen, who grew up in Bengaluru, said he was personally excited to launch the new regional office, calling it “one of the most modern” he has seen in his career. The city’s talent pool and cluster of tech giants make it a natural hub for Cohesity’s future.
But he also voiced concerns about the city’s infrastructure, especially long commutes that push employees to work from home.
“In Bengaluru, some commutes are horribly long, two hours sometimes,” he said. “We want people in the office for collaboration, but it’s pointless to ask them to come in five days a week if the commute is that long.”
“If we don’t solve this, some tech companies may give up and move out of Bengaluru,” he warned.
Despite the challenges, Poonen said the city remains central to Cohesity’s global strategy, and the company’s investment signals long-term confidence in India’s tech capital. |
