Zoom was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan as a cloud-based video-conferencing company.
Eric Yuan had previously worked on collaboration software at WebEx, which Cisco acquired in 2007. He founded Zoom Video Communications after believing that existing video-conferencing products could offer a smoother experience, especially on mobile devices and across different operating systems.
Zoom launched its first product in 2013. Its cloud-based design let participants join meetings without maintaining traditional on-premises conferencing hardware, helping the service appeal to businesses, schools and individuals.
Zoom became especially prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when remote work and online education sharply increased demand for video meetings. It is sometimes confused with Webex because Yuan worked at WebEx before founding Zoom, but they are separate products and companies.