Built for Today’s Biggest Technology Challenges
ZL Tech has been a leader in information management for the past two decades, solving the biggest compliance, governance and privacy challenges for companies across the Fortune 500 and beyond. At the core of ZL’s vision is its unique differentiator, a unified architecture that centralizes billions of documents and all governance functions under one platform, eliminating today’s fractured data silos.
ZL Tech began in 1999 as an email security company, expanding its scope over the years to address storage management, compliance, eDiscovery, records management, and now, analytics and privacy. Whether it was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, or new privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, ZL Tech has constantly evolved to match the most difficult challenges of the time.
A Scalable and Centralized Solution for Silo-Based Data
As enterprise data has become increasingly silo-based—stored in disjointed repositories from file shares, email, databases, cloud applications, etc.— the unique requirements for data management have simultaneously converged. Compliance, legal, records management, analytics and privacy all interact with the same data, so they must interact with one another. As many vendors seek to adapt by acquiring and integrating other products, ZL Tech instead has remained at the forefront of information governance by maintaining 100% of its source code and staying true to its unique vision: a scalable and centralized architecture for all enterprise data.
This has been one of the best third-party software implementations that my colleague and I have completed over 25 years of software implementations.”Gartner PeerInsights review from a senior business analyst at a $1B finance company
A Brief History
2020 and Beyond:
From Risk to Opportunity
The rise of GenAI shines a spotlight on unstructured data, transforming it from a compliance burden into a source of strategic value. As organizations look to harness AI, the need to first govern and curate massive volumes of human generated content, including emails, documents, and file shares, becomes critical. Building on decades of expertise in unstructured data management, ZL Tech launches ZL EFM, a solution for defensible file share cleanup at the petabyte level. By managing for governance needs and removing ROT, the technology lays the groundwork for trusted, high value information that can power AI and advanced analytics. The offering marks a new chapter in information governance, addressing both the risks and the opportunities of unstructured data at scale.
2025
Leads in leveraging governed unstructured data to power AI.
2024
Releases Enterprise Files Management (EFM) for defensible deletion of petabyte-scale ROT.
2023
Enables enterprise-wide curation of unstructured data to support AI and analytics.
2022
New people analytics harnesses unstructured data to provide new opportunity to gain insights.
2021
Expands manage-in-place functionality to electronic messages, enabling massive advancements in eDiscovery, internal investigations, and people analytics. Featured in Gartner Magic Quadrant for 15th consecutive year.
2010-2019:
Digital Transformation on a Global Scale
The second decade marked a time of growth for ZL Tech, expanding to Japan, India and the EU while bringing on global customers with massive volumes of data. The company introduces new technology that leverages analytics and cloud to deliver better insights into dark data, while integrating “in-place” management with archiving. The concept of managing data without creating a copy represents a subtle but monumental new element in the governance equation, minimizing the often-costly process of large-scale archiving while solving for new privacy regulations such as GDPR.
2018
Delivers in-place management of files, first implemented for a global banking customer with file shares spanning 50+ countries.
2017
Opens offices in Vancouver, Canada.
2016
Delivers next generation of eDiscovery technology.
2015
Opens offices in Hyderabad, India.
2010
Opens offices in Tokyo, Japan.
1999-2009
A New World of Data
Originally founded as “ZipLip,” a reference to a military term that denotes security through radio-silence in hostile territory, the Silicon Valley startup originates as a secure webmail and file platform for large carriers and ISPs (internet service providers) providing a robust and scalable platform. However, following the emergence of a brand-new compliance landscape brought about by the Sarbanes Oxley Act, utilizing the scalable platform originally built for carriers and ISPs, the company quickly emerges as a major player with large enterprise customers in the financial services industry. ZipLip ultimately rebrands as ZL Tech and gains a foothold with its unique value proposition: unified information management.
2006
Introduces unified eDiscovery, following new requirements from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
2003
Following Sarbanes Oxley, ZL Tech introduces unified information governance and compliance.
2000
Launches secure webmail for Starhub, wireless carrier in Singapore (a JV between British Telecom and NTT).
1999
Founded as ZipLip, a secure webmail and files platform software company.
