With Reliance Jio by its side, Accops is rewriting India’s cybersecurity playbook

Before the pandemic, most Indian companies stuck to office desktops and closed networks, wary of letting employees connect remotely. VPNs were costly and clunky, and carried their own security risks. That’s where Pune-based Accops stepped in—building a homegrown platform that gives enterprises safe, controlled access to applications and data from anywhere. In 2012, Vijender Yadav and Mohan Bhat, who earlier worked together at cybersecurity firm NeoAccel, founded Accops based on their observation that enterprises struggled with costly, complex, and insecure VPN systems. “We wanted to build something from India that could stand on par with global players, but also be more aligned with the specific needs of Indian enterprises,” Yadav says. The flagship product Accops’ flagship Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution lets enterprises create secure virtual desktops in a centralised data centre or cloud, which employees can access from anywhere on their personal devices. It looks and works like a regular computer, but the data never leaves the company’s control. Alongside VDI, the startup offers a secure access gateway for safe connectivity, multi-factor authentication for stronger logins, quantum-safe encryption for future-proof security, and internet isolation browsers to block malware and tracking, as well as Huddle, which is for government remote support, as claimed by Yadav. Today, Accops serves nearly 1,000 organisations worldwide, with around 700 active customers. Its reach has expanded beyond India to markets like the Middle East and Japan. Working with enterprises, governments, and consumers The COVID-19 pandemic served as a turning point for Accops, with its business tripling in 2020 as companies hurried to set up remote work. Many clients, including government departments, started using its systems within days, showing how urgent secure digital access had become. Accops works mainly on a B2B model, serving sectors like banking, manufacturing, IT services, and retail. Ecommerce companies use its secure gateway to connect temporary call centre agents during peak seasons, while global IT service giants rely on Accops’ virtual desktops for over 4.5 lakh employees worldwide to access internal systems safely.  The company also has a strong B2G presence, with the National Informatics Centre using its gateway to keep government services running during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Within a week, one lakh officials were able to work from home, and today, more than five lakh government employees use the platform to access applications like eOffice. Defence organisations, the critical infrastructure organisation, and nuclear research centres also depend on Accops’ virtualisation and isolation tools for secure operations. Accops uses OpenAI and generative AI tools to improve internal operations. The company has built employee chatbots, uses AI to summarise long RFPs, and experiments with tools that track customer activity on LinkedIn to spot opportunities.  “AI is great for summarising and spotting patterns, which saves time,” Yadav says. “But for core cybersecurity, customers won’t trust AI to make the final decision.” In 2023, when Reliance Jio took a majority stake in Accops, it scaled while powering projects like Jio PC, its B2C model that turns a Jio set-top box into an affordable cloud computer for households, students, and low-income families.  “Our promise has always been to remain an Indian company, and with Reliance, we found a partner who understands both scale and data sovereignty,” Yadav tells YourStory.

Challenges and growth  Accops now positions itself among the top three players in the Asia Pacific, alongside Microsoft and VMware. “Earlier, our goal was just to be invited to every proof-of-concept evaluation. Today, we are already there, competing directly with global giants,” Yadav says.  While its main competition comes from global firms like Citrix and VMware, the founder notes that Indian rivals exist but remain small and scattered. The biggest challenge for Accops was earning trust in a market dominated by global giants. Enterprises often preferred established international players, making it hard for an Indian company to break through. “When we started, people doubted whether an Indian company could compete with global tech giants. But we’ve shown that it is possible,” Yadav says. Accops earns revenue through a licensing model, charging clients on a per-user basis. Large customers like Thermax, its very first client, purchased 1,000 licences upfront, paying around Rs 5,000 per user, along with an annual maintenance fee of 18-20%.  Today, the company remains fully bootstrapped, with a revenue of Rs 80 crore in FY25, as claimed by Yadav.
What’s in the future?  Accops’ biggest upcoming project is a SaaS platform set to launch next year, offering all products via subscription. This will help the company expand into markets like Southeast Asia, the US, and Europe, while still providing hybrid solutions for defence and government clients who can’t fully shift to the cloud. The company is also building AI-enabled monitoring tools, developing solutions for education and healthcare, and expanding its consumer offerings through deeper collaboration with Reliance Jio. As per a Grand View Research report, the Cybersecurity market in the Asia-Pacific region is estimated at $61.4 billion in 2024, and is projected to reach $146.3 billion by 2030, growing at a strong rate of around 15.6% CAGR. “We currently hold about 2% but our goal is to reach 10% in the coming years,” Yadav says.