• According to a loyal customer, Iyar is “energetic, sincere and charming, and he doesn’t quit.”

   

• More than six billion meeting minutes now happen using Webex every month.

Venture capital funding worth $25 million in 1999 helped to expand what is now one of the world’s most-used web-conferencing brands. When WebEx was bought by Cisco Systems in 2007, the cost was $3.2 billion.

One of the two pioneers behind WebEx is a savvy salesman and high-tech entrepreneur from India named Subrah S. Iyar.

Iyar is descended from Tamil immigrants who had migrated to Mumbai. After graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai, he moved to the United States and worked at Intel, Apple Inc., Quarterdeck and Teleos Research.

In the 1990s, he was befriended by Stanford-trained system engineer Min Zhu, who needed help developing and selling his web-conferencing tool. In 1996, they launched WebEx Communications.

Low bandwidth presented a significant obstacle at first, and WebEx struggled to even turn a profit. After the shift to broadband, the company took off and became a serious competitor in the industry.

When WebEx received its first funding of $25 million in 1999, Iyar was able to implement many of his ideas and strategies for the company and revenues crossed the $1 million mark. In 2007, Cisco Systems acquired WebEx for $3.2 billion. According to the Cisco, more than six billion meeting minutes now happen using Webex every month.

Iyar’s next business looks to follow the same path to success. He launched the collaboration platform provider, Moxtra, in 2013, and Citigroup awarded Moxtra the Best Client Engagement Tool at the APAC Citi Mobile Challenge in 2016. Moxtra’s app has been downloaded more than 5 million times.

Discover more exceptional Asian American immigrants in the blog post Nine Famous Asian and Pacific Islander Immigrants.

Updated July 2022