Sony said on Friday that it will launch the PlayStation 5 in India on February 2, suggesting improvements in the supply chain network that has been severely throttled by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Japanese firm said it will begin taking pre-order requests for the new gaming console in India, which is the world’s second largest internet market, on January 12. The console will be available for pre-order at Amazon, Flipkart, Croma, Reliance Digital, Games the Shop, Sony Center, Vijay Sales and select other authorized retail partners, the company said.
The announcement today should allay concerns of loyal PlayStation fans, some of whom secured a unit from the gray market at a premium in recent months after India was not included in the first wave of nations for the PS5. Fans have also been frustrated at Sony and its affiliated partners for not offering clarification or providing conflicting accounts in recent months.
In November, Sony suggested that it had delayed the launch of the PS5 in India due to local import regulations. The PlayStation 5 is priced at Indian rupees 49,990 ($685), while the digital edition of the console will sell at Indian rupees 39,990 ($550).
In the 2020 COVID pandemic, most enterprises have realized the importance of creating an effective digital presence. While some businesses used digital presence to promote their services and business continuity, other companies used the latest trends to stay ahead among competitors. One of the most popular and widely used platforms is Node.JS, which is widely used for the development process.
CRI-O and Podman have been widely adapted by most of the modern container platforms. In this blog, I will explore why everybody is gaga about this new ecosystem of tools/utilities and share some of my experience in this series.
I got a lot of feedback, after I published my blog on Containers and evolution of Containers (you can read it here 'Evolution of k8s worker nodes - CRI-O'). One of the common questions asked, is how Podman is different from Docker and how the new ecosystem of podman+buildah+cri-o+skopio different from what we do with docker... so I wanted to do a deep dive on these things, and share some of my experiences with this new ecosystem of container runtime and management tools/utilities.
I think code review is one of the best sources of inspiration. I see it as an opportunity to learn new things from other software developers sending pull/merge requests. Moreover, sometimes you may need to study a specific subject with more details regarding the under review code. Usually, this process leads to a more profound knowledge of that domain. However, there’s still another fact about code review: after a while, you face some common mistakes. Recently, I reviewed a feature in which I saw an Optional pitfall. Honestly, I had seen that issue several times in different merge requests sent by several developers (from beginners to experienced ones).
I know that there are tonnes of articles regarding Java Optional, some of which are quite useful like this one (although I have arguments against some of the cases mentioned in the article) by Anghel Leonard, the author of Java Coding Problems. I don’t want to repeat all of the contents you can simply find by googling. I intend to talk about some of the most common and least addressed pitfalls regarding Optional usage.
The system could work efficiently with a specific number of concurrent users; however, it may get dysfunctional with extra loads during peak traffic. Performances testing helps establish the scalability, stability, and speed of the software application. Numerous kinds of performance testing imitate several possible user scenarios and know the behavior of the apps. With rising competition in the digital world and the requirement to be present in the top rank of the category, performance tests are crucial for companies. Performance testing is mainly a subset of Performance engineering and is also referred to as 'Perf Tests.' Confirming scalability, dependability, stability, and speed of the app is crucial. An app is built with some expectations and is supposed to provide firm results. For example, the gaming app has to present definite actions to bring the right experience.
Performance testing does not essentially display imperfections with an app, yet it needs to ensure that the app function as expected despite the bandwidth availability, network fluctuations, or traffic overload. It is almost a part of the wider performance engineering portrait, concentrating on performance glitches in the architecture and design of any software. Therefore, designing and implementing such tests are crucial to ensure the stability of the website.
Technology is evolving rapidly; therefore, web developers need to stay updated with the ongoing developments and trends, as it is one of the most crucial aspects for the success of businesses.
There are over 1.74 billion websites around the world. Companies are seen to be competing with one another for the top rank on the search engine. The reason why developers should know and discover more innovative ways to web development as it helps businesses to grow rather exponentially and globally.
Web scraping is the process of extracting data from a website or other source of information. The action is conducted because data isn’t that easily available. The online platform has pools of information that may or may not be easily accessible. Data that is accessible, however, cannot be downloaded.
Java is one of the most used languages in the world and the most successful language in the field of IT. This programming language owes its runaway success to WORA (write once, run anywhere), an important feature that removes the platform dependencies during application execution.
In older days, Java was easy to understand, write, compile, learn, and debug, which allows you to design modular programs and reusable resources.
Samsung Electronics vice chairman Jay Y. Lee faces a nine-year prison term in the bribery case that contributed to the downfall of former president Park Guen-hye. Prosecutors argued that the length of the sentence is warranted because of Samsung’s power as the largest chaebol, or family-owned conglomerate, in South Korea.
“Samsung is a group with such overwhelming power that it is said Korean companies are divided into Samsung and non-Samsung,” they said during a final hearing on Wednesday, reports the Korea Herald. The final ruling is scheduled for January 18.
The bribery case is separate from another trial Lee is involved in, over alleged accounting fraud and stock-price manipulation. Hearings in that case began in October.
The bribery case dates back to 2017, when Lee was convicted of bribing Park and her close associate Choi Soon-sil and sentenced to five years in prison. Prosecutors allege the bribes were meant to secure government backing for Lee’s attempt to inherit control of Samsung from his father Lee Kun-hee, then its chairman. The illegal payments were a major part of the corruption scandal that led to Park’s impeachment, arrest and 25-year prison sentence.
Lee was freed in 2018 after the sentence was reduced and suspended on appeal, and returned to work as Samsung’s de facto head, a position he took after his father had a heart attack in 2014.
The elder Lee, who was reportedly South Korea’s wealthiest citizen, died in October. He was worth an estimated $20.7 billion and under the country’s tax system, and his heirs could be liable for estate taxes of about $10 billion, reported Fortune.
ObjectiveSQL is an ORM framework in Java based on the ActiveRecord pattern, which encourages rapid and clean development and clean, minimal coding, and convention over configuration.
Features
With one annotation, your Class has fully featured capabilities of SQL programming
Easy relational queries (has_one, has_many, and belongs_to) and paged queries
Writing SQL expressions (arithmetic, comparison, and logical) using Java syntax
Why to choose
If your project focuses on data analysis based on relation database, and a lot of arithmetic expressions in SQL statement. ObjectiveSQL will help you write expressions conveniently and safely using Java syntax
If you don’t want to write Java codes of database access and various configuration files, ObjectiveSQL's dynamic code generation will help you access the database without coding
Spring Boot Architecture: Spring Publishing is a sophisticated variant or job from the Spring framework. Together with the Spring framework, in addition, it is made up of third party libraries and Embedded HTTP servers. It easily produces a production-grade, more time consuming, and standalone applications dependent on the Spring framework.
The goal of Spring Hack would be to completely get rid of the usage of XML-based and annotation-based settings in the software. By default, it provides the majority of the items, like functions, processes, etc.
I have immersed myself in the digital identity space for the past few years. A good chunk of this work involves reading (and sometimes creating) specifications, as you can imagine. It is critical that they be written in such a way that two independent parties can build interoperable implementations without relying on each other’s code. With this in mind, let’s have a brief chat about OAuth2 Bearer Token Usage with a focus on the token’s encoding.
But first, let’s have a brief talk about what OAuth2 is.
Framer Motion is a relatively new and popular open-source React animation library, aimed at creating production-ready animation. Framer Motion is Pose’s animation library next-in-line. It possesses a low-level declarative API and can be used irrespective of platform, for the web as well as for mobile apps. Its other advantage valued by the software developers is that it’s also possible to get it as a separate package for use in React apps.
Framer’s documentation provides enough tutorials on how to do the simplest gestures and motion. However, if you are working with more sophisticated cases, there’s too little information on the web in this respect. So it makes no sense to delve into the simplest examples, they can be done according to the documentation. There are also articles on this topic (albeit not very many of them) on the web. Let’s tinker with more complex Framer animations instead.
Laravel Breeze is an authentication scaffolding package released by the Laravel team:
“Breeze provides a minimal and simple starting point for building a Laravel application with authentication. Styled with Tailwind, Breeze publishes authentication controllers and views to your application that can be easily customized based on your own application’s needs.” - GitHub Page
Have you ever been sent compressed images that have poor definition? Even when you zoom in, the image is still blurry. I recently received a ZIP file of travel photos from a trip I went on with a friend. After opening it, I found to my dismay that each image was either too dark, too dim, or too blurry. How am I going to show off with such terrible photos? So, I sought help from the Internet, and luckily, I came across HUAWEI ML Kit's image super-resolution capability. The amazing thing is that this SDK is free of charge and can be used with all Android phones.
Background
ML Kit's image super-resolution capability is backed by a deep neural network and provides two super-resolution capabilities for mobile apps:
Christmas has always been a time when people stay away from work, relax, travel, and do a great deal of shopping, but 2020 has come with a difference. The first and second waves of COVID-19 have made it almost impossible for people to move around and shop at will. What people have to recourse to is online shopping. In 2019, according to a recent study, 93.4% of American consumers bought Christmas gifts, and the average consumer who bought Christmas gifts spent $928.76.
Most of these gifts were bought online. Buying from an ecommerce store, among other things, removes geographical limitations, reduces costs, and enhances comparison shopping. It also enables deals, bargains, coupons, group-buying in real-time and creates room for targeted communication. However, this comes with many cybersecurity risks. Cybercriminals catch in on the volume of data and personal information that have to be ferried during Christmas to wreak serious havoc.
If you are in the streaming industry or have some interest, you may have heard the word transcoding a lot. You may know a little about what transcoding is, or you may be wondering what this word you hear all the time. However, regardless of your situation, after this blog post, you will have full control of the transcoding process. Let’s not forget that the video transcoding process is very important for live broadcasts, especially if you want to use adaptive streaming in live streams to reach more audiences. We will find an answer to the question of what is transcoding.
But… To really understand what transcoding is and how it affects the success of your streams, firstly, we need to talk about encoding and need to understand what encoding is. We cannot talk about transcoding without talking about encoding.
The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has approved Tokyo-based GMO Internet to launch GYEN, the first stablecoin pegged to the Japanese yen.
GMO Internet, an internet conglomerate that offers a large array of services, including domain hosting, online advertising and what it claims is the world’s largest foreign exchange trading platform, will set up GMO-Z.com Trust Company (GMO Trust) to issue GYEN and ZUSD, a USD-pegged stablecoin. Both will start selling outside of Japan next month.
In a press announcement, GMO Trust said it had also made strategic partnerships with global digital asset exchanges to ensure the liquidity of the virtual currencies. Began developing GYEN in 2018.
GMO Trust joins about two dozen other companies that have received virtual currency licenses, also called BitLicenses, from the NYSDFS. BitLicenses, which went into effect in June 2015, are required to engage in virtual currency business activities in New York. Other companies based in Asia that hold BitLicenses include Japan’s bitflyer, a Bitcoin exchange, and Hong Kong-based digital wallet Xapo.
Apple faces a major setback in one of its legal fights, VMware sues a former executive and Google tests a new short-form video feature. This is your Daily Crunch for December 29, 2020.
The big story: Judge dismisses Apple copyright claims against Corellium
Apple filed a lawsuit last year against Corellium, a company that allows security researchers to create virtualized iOS devices in the browser in order to discover potential security flaws.
Apple argued that Corellium’s product both infringes its copyright and, by circumventing built-in authentications and security checks, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Today, Judge Rodney Smith dismissed Apple’s copyright claims and wrote that “Corellium has met its burden of establishing fair use.”
Smith did not rule on Apple’s DMCA claims, so this legal battle isn’t over.
The tech giants
VMware files suit against former exec for moving to rival company — The company is claiming that former COO Rajiv Ramaswami had inside knowledge of the key plans at VMware and that he should have told the company that he was interviewing for a job at a rival organization.
Streaming services face their real test in 2021 — While media/telecom executives and Wall Street investors have been willing to make big investments for a streaming-centric future, they’ll expect to see actual profits soon.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here for a holiday deal good through January 3. Read more about the deal here.)
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As we are moving forward in this century, businesses are developing complex data systems. The purpose is to have all the data maintained and managed. And all companies now are prioritizing centralized database instead of piled up scattered information. They know that the trouble with data is that it comes in various forms and from multiple sources. And then the organization of all that data becomes extremely hard. So, to utilize the information effectively and link and organizing the data, businesses are now shifting towards data mapping.
What is Data Mapping?
One can define data mapping as creating a map or pathway to link data with a centralized database, and a centralized database can have several templates. It can be a CSV document or some other template. The primary goal of data mapping is to homogenize all the data sources in one. Data planning implies that diverse informational collections, with differing methods of characterizing comparable focuses.
I think code review is one of the best sources of inspiration. I see it as an opportunity to learn new things from other software developers sending pull/merge requests. Moreover, sometimes you may need to study a specific subject with more details regarding the under review code. Usually, this process leads to a more profound knowledge of that domain. However, there’s still another fact about code review: after a while, you face some common mistakes. Recently, I reviewed a feature in which I saw an Optional pitfall. Honestly, I had seen that issue several times in different merge requests sent by several developers (from beginners to experienced ones).
I know that there are tonnes of articles regarding Java Optional, some of which are quite useful like this one (although I have arguments against some of the cases mentioned in the article) by Anghel Leonard, the author of Java Coding Problems. I don’t want to repeat all of the contents you can simply find by googling. I intend to talk about some of the most common and least addressed pitfalls regarding Optional usage.
DevOps, as the term notes, is the practice that encourages partnership between development and IT operation teams to suit the aspirations of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) and modern software delivery. However, this union of two teams is only half-done; to be able to reap the full benefits of DevOps, testing also needs to be tagged along in the continuous delivery chain.
So, what do we mean by testing in DevOps? Fundamentally, testing in DevOps aims to strike the right balance within the overlap of goals, feedback cycles, skills among the development, QA, and the operations team. It promotes the collaboration of all three teams while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes.
To release multilingual products, you add localization to your workflow. You should make sure it’s automated so it won’t delay your next release. At Crowdin, we believe that localization should go in parallel with the development process. Meaning that each new text string created or modified by you goes to the translator right away. This way, once you’re ready to deploy your next update, you can simply merge translations into the master or feature branch and hit deploy.
Where to Start?
What are the first steps? How to set up an automated localization workflow?
This tough year, 2020, will soon be over at last, which means it's time to look back at our accomplishments! Over the year, the PVS-Studio team has written quite a number of articles covering a large variety of bugs found in open-source projects with the help of PVS-Studio. This 2020 top 10 list of bugs in C# projects presents the most interesting specimens. Enjoy the reading!
How the List Was Formed
This list is composed of what I find the most interesting warnings collected across the articles my teammates and I have written over 2020. The main factor in deciding whether to include a warning or leave it out was the degree of certainty that the warning pointed at an actual issue. Of course, I also took the "appeal" of warnings into account when choosing and ranking them, but this quality is too subjective, so feel free to share your own opinion in the comments.
This blog is the first part of the series, “Step-by-Step Guide to Use Anypoint MQ.” Part 1 will provide an understanding of what Anypoint MQ is, why it is used, and how we can create queues using Anypoint MQ to use in the Mule API. We will see how to create an Anypoint MQ queue and a client application. We’ll also get a demo of how to use the publish and consume operations of Anypoint MQ.
What Is a Queue & Why Do We Need One?
A queue is a temporary storage area used for inter-app communication — in simple words, to transfer the message from one API/service to another. If we consider an example of API-led connectivity in Mulesoft, we may require a mechanism to send messages from our exp API to the process API so a queue can be used. The exp API will send the message to the queue and the process API will consume the same message from the queue. This is just a simple example; there are many such use cases where queues can be used.
Logic Bank introduces spreadsheet-like rules to automate transaction logic for databases – multi-table constraints and derivations, and actions such as sending messages or emails. It can reduce 95% of your transactional logic by 40X.
It is based on Python and SQLAlchemy, an Object Relational Mapper (ORM). It's open source on GitHub.
The reason why intelligent document processing (IDP) is gaining attention is that it provides disruptive solutions to automate data extraction projects that were previously extremely difficult, if not impossible to solve.
Though I had not planned it initially, I purchased a domain name for my cloud server on which run the two Rails applications described in my previous DZone articles (first and second).
Some months ago, I had written a word game as a Flask web application. The code was inside my laptop, and I decided to put it out in the public domain. However, to give it a mobile app feel, I decided to make it a Progressive Web Application (PWA).
Futures allow us to run values off the main thread and handle values that are running in the background or yet to be executed by mapping them with callbacks.
If you come from a Java background, you might be aware of java.util.concurrent.Future. There are several challenges in using this:
Threads are always blocked while retrieving values.
The wait time for the completion of computation.
The GET method is the only way to retrieve values.
It’s a weary andantagonistic way of writing concurrent code.
Ok, I admit it, I'm cheap. But is it too much to ask for a Kubernetes cluster for less than $20 pcm?
I'm a great fan of containerization and the Kubernetes (k8s) orchestration system in particular, and I like messing about with personal projects, but I've always found hosting my own projects in a k8s cluster to be prohibitively expensive.
JetBrains is a world-class vendor of developer tools that are loved by millions of geeks. IntelliJ IDEA, ReSharper, PhpStorm, PyCharm, and WebStorm are all JetBrains products that have become household names in their respective developer communities.
As development teams grow and get more diverse, companies start to purchase more subscriptions to JetBrains tools. However, buying subscriptions is just the first step. Engineering teams need to distribute licenses among existing developers, provide licenses to new developers as they come on board, and revoke licenses from developers as they leave or switch to a different technology stack.
In a world where Kubernetes has become the de facto standard to build application services that span multiple containers, running a cloud-native distributed database represents an important part of the experience of using Kubernetes. In this connection, TiDB, a cloud-native, open-source NewSQL database that supports hybrid transactional and analytical processing (HTAP) workloads, meets those needs admirably. Its architecture is suitable for Kubernetes, and it is MySQL-compatible. TiDB also features horizontal scalability, strong consistency, and high availability.
In addition to TiDB, I am also using KubeSphere, an open-source distributed operating system that manages cloud-native applications with Kubernetes as its kernel. It provides a plug-and-play architecture for the seamless integration of third-party applications to boost its ecosystem. KubeSphere can be run anywhere as it is highly pluggable without any hacking into Kubernetes.
While we need good bots like search engines and digital assistants (Siri and Alexa), we must detect bad bots that can disrupt site analytics and generate click frauds.
There are so many online games these days that are addictive, easy to play, and suitable for a wide age range. I've long dreamed of creating a hit game of my own, but doing so is harder than it seems. I was researching on the Internet, and was fortunate to learn about HUAWEI ML Kit's face detection and hand keypoint detection capabilities, which make games much more engaging.
Application Scenarios
ML Kit's face detection capability detects up to 855 keypoints of the face, and returns the coordinates for the face contours, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, as well as angles. Integrating the face detection capability makes it easy to create a beauty app, or enable users to add special effects to facial images to make them more intriguing.
“It is clear on my part; it's the testing phase that's taking the time.”
Do you ever come across such statements? This is how most non-testers behave while working on a project when they lack knowledge about how great software testing is.
Automation testing is a reliable approach that can make the software testing process easy, fast, and convenient. But many specialists in the QA field have claimed that automation testing failed or did not meet their expectations. One of the main mistakes is that development teams rely too much on automated testing or use it improperly. Automation testing is a robust tool, but not a panacea. And like every tool, it requires an experienced master who knows how and when to use it.
Problem 1: What to Automate
Every company has its requirements for a product. Scope for automation testing depends on the type of project and its end goals.
DXY, a 20-year-old online healthcare community for Chinese consumers and healthcare organizations like Pfizer, announced this week that it has raised $500 million in a new round led by private equity firm Trustbridge Partners.
Existing backer Tencent and Hillhouse Capital also participated in the round, which lifted the firm’s total funding to over $660 million to date. DXY’s earlier investors include Xiaomi founder Lei Jun’s Shunwei Capital, Legend Capital and DCM.
The company started out as a knowledge-sharing platform for doctors and has over time added a consumer-facing aspect by bringing wellness advice and medical consultation services to the public, that is, steps that patients can take at home before having to go to the hospital.
As the pandemic took hold, hospitals and people around the world rushed to shift their activities online, spurring demand for healthcare apps. DXY responded swiftly and was among the first in China to introduce a real-time COVID-19 tracker at the beginning of the outbreak.
Today, healthcare organizations can also use DXY as an advertising channel, a learning platform as well as a recruiting site, ways for the company to generate revenue.
Since its inception, the site has attracted some 130 million consumers, more than 9,000 medical institutions, and 50,000 doctors who have provided online consultation. The platform has a current user base of 20 million and counts Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca among its major clients.
DXY plans to spend its new proceeds on strengthening the two pillars of its business — support for physicians and services for consumers. Its consumer business faces some strong opponents in China, ranging from SoftBank-backed Ping An Good Doctor, Alibaba Health, JD Health, and WeDoctor, which is also backed by Tencent.
The most prominent way to resolve conflict in Agile is first to normalize it. Often, conflicts are wrongly looked upon as threats to the product and the team. This view should be discouraged by the Agile project leader and the other team members.
Extra effort is needed to address conflict in the right manner. The resolution process should stay constructive throughout and each team member’s contribution should be appreciated.
Today most of the business is going for cloud servers or dedicated servers to host their data. But the question arises of how secure is your server that is hosting your business data. What if your data is being compromised using these servers? As business is moving online, there come several cybercrimes that are leaving your data prone to attacks. There can be several ways that your data can be compromised, but what measures should you take in protecting the data?
The foremost step is to wisely select your hosting server and what features they are offering you. First, you need to understand the risks that can compromise your integrity. In that case, you can opt for a dedicated server to host your data as the business will be having full control over how your data is being accessed and by whom. You will be able to make changes without any third-party interference. You will also have your IT staff working and handling the data’s security, so there will be fewer chances of data compromisation.
There has been a great advancement and growth in the sector of QA testing with the latest trends introducing into IT field services. The introduction of innovative technologies has brought the newest updates in software testing, development, design, and delivery. The high priority of enterprises around the world is cost optimization. In undertaking so, the majority of the IT leaders believe in the incorporation of the newest IT methodologies for their organization. Digital transformation is yet another significant focus point for the sectors and the enterprises that are ranking top on cloud and business analytics.
Even automation practices became the mainstream, paving the way for flawless test practices. Besides, AI and ML seem to reach a new level. Nowadays, Big Data tests mainly include data testing, paving the way for the Internet of Things to become the center point. It is one focal point where all software testing companies should treat with care. Factors such as reliability and quality are being given extra attention that results in the decrease of software app errors, enhancing the security and the app performance.
What a whirlwind holiday for Jack Ma and his fintech empire. The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, summoned Ant Group for regulatory talks on December 26th, announcing a sweeping plan for the fintech firm to “rectify” its regulatory violations.
The meeting came less than two months after China’s financial authorities abruptly halted what could have been a record-setting initial public offering of Ant over the firm’s regulatory compliance issues. The company, which started out as a payments processor for Alibaba’s online marketplaces and spun out in 2011, lacked a sound governance structure, defied regulatory requirements, illegally engaged in arbitrage, excluded competitors using its market advantage and hurt consumer rights, said the central bank.
Concurrently, Jack Ma’s e-commerce giant Alibaba is under investigation by China’s top market regulator over alleged monopolistic behavior.
The banking authority laid out a five-point compliance agenda for Ant, which is controlled by Alibaba’s billionaire founder Jack Ma. The fintech company should return to its roots in payments and bring more transparency to transactions; obtain the necessary licenses for its credit businesses and protect user data privacy; establish a financial holding company and ensure it holds sufficient capital; revamp its credit, insurance, wealth management and other financial businesses according to the law; and step up compliance for its securities business.
Following the closed-door meeting, Ant said it has established an internal “rectification workforce” to work on all the regulatory requirements.
The shakeup could take months to carry out and likely dent Ant’s valuation, which surpassed $300 billion around the time it was scheduled to go public. For instance, the government recently announced plans to raise the bar for third-party technology platforms like Ant to provide loans to consumers, a segment that made up about 35% of Ant’s annual revenue. The proposed change, which is part of Beijing’s effort to control the country’s debt risks, also sets a new requirement for online microlenders to provide at least 30% of the loan they fund jointly with banks, which could put pressure on Ant’s cash flow.
Some remain optimistic about Ant’s future. “[Ant] creates a lot of value. If you take the long view, the temporary suspension of its IPO has a limited impact on its business,” Bill Deng, founder of cross-border payments operator Xtransfer and a former executive at Ant, said to TechCrunch.
“From the regulator’s standpoint, [Ant’s] lending size is getting so big that it has extended beyond the old regulatory perimeters. To some extent, it has also encroached on the core interests of traditional financial players,” he added.
The clampdown on Ant has no doubt sent a warning to the rest of the industry. In a surprising move, JD.com’s fintech unit, a challenger to Ant, appointed its former chief compliance officer to steer the fintech firm as the new chief executive officer.
Tencent also has a sprawling fintech business, but it may not receive the same level of scrutiny because the social and gaming giant is “not nearly as aggressive” as Ant, said a partner of Tencent’s overseas fintech business who asked not to be named.
The coronavirus pandemic — and a handful of other factors — slowed dealmaking for startups in India this year.
Compared to their record $14.5 billion fundraise last year, Indian startups are ending 2020 with about $9.3 billion. This is the first time since 2016 that startups in India, one of the world’s largest startup communities, has raised less than $10 billion in a year, according to consultancy firm Tracxn.
The number of deals fell from 1,185 last year to 1,088 in 2020. There were fewer larger sized rounds, too. Rounds with dealsize $100 million or larger fell from 26 in 2019 to 20 (these rounds delivered $3.6 billion this year, compared to $7.5 billion last year), and similarly rounds with dealsize $50 million to $100 million fell from 27 to 13. (The figures do not include investments in telecom giant Jio Platforms, which alone raised over $20 billion this year.)
Despite the slowdown, Indian startups saw substantial rebound in the second half of this year. In the first half, startups in the world’s second largest internet market had raised just $4.2 billion from about 461 deals, said Tracxn.
Other than the coronavirus, which has impacted startups worldwide, another factor that impacted the dealmaking was absence of — or reduced participation from — some of the biggest investors.
Chinese giants such as Alibaba — and its affiliate Ant Group — and Tencent wrote fewer checks this year to Indian startups amid tension between the two neighboring nations. SoftBank also delivered less capital as many of its high-profile portfolio firms including Paytm, Oyo Rooms, and Ola did not raise money.
Bond, a firm started by Mary Meeker and other high-profile investors, backed Byju’s this year. Bond believes that Byju’s will be worth over $30 billion in three years, a person who was briefed by the investment firm told TechCrunch. Several startups in India operating on a SaaS model and catering to customers worldwide also picked up momentum this year.
“I am old enough (unfortunately!) to have seen the 2001 and 2008 downturns so when Covid hit and there were stories of doom and gloom everywhere, I remembered what I saw happening in the past downturns — a beginning of a new generation of teams who built the next generation of companies,” said Vaibhav Domkundwar, founder and managing partner at Better Capital. Better Capital, which backs early stage startups in India, wrote 43 investment and follow-on checks this year.
M&A activities also accelerated this year. Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr for $300 million, while Unacademy acquired PrepLadder, which offers courses aimed at medical students, for $50 million in July. It also led an investment round of $5 million to acquire a majority stake in Mastree.
But for the first time, Indian startups are on the verge of seeing another kind of exit. Zomato,Flipkart, and Policybazaar are among some startups that plan to go public next year. Analysts at Bernstein have identified Paytm, Byju’s, PhonePe, and Delhivery among those who could also go public by 2022.
