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Gayatri Sachdeva
Gayatri Sachdeva

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The rise of developer centric companies in India

"$49B in annualized recurring revenue, up 22% from 2020, from over 1000 companies whose products were sold or influenced by developers!“ says Tyler Musings in this fantastic article.

Developer centric tools are the ones that help you elevate your development practices and create products and services that have the potential to generate massive revenue. For example This is also why developer tools are heavily in demand. Developers love using tools that make them more productive, reduce the risk of errors and bugs and keeps them informed about their work in production.

Developer led companies are broadly categorized into 

  1. Software delivery lifecycle tools for DevOps, enablement, agile delivery 
  2. Dev Tools i.e. SDK, IDEs, frameworks, languages, design editors
  3. Developer Platforms -i.e. Platform as a service, API as a product, Low code, 
  4. Developer Infrastructure i.e. CI/CD, Test Automation, GitOps

India has gradually moved from “Offshore partner” tag with its huge ITeS capabilities (Read TCS, Wipro, Infosys) to SaaS products or Product led companies (Freshdesk, Zoho, Clevertap, VWO)
Product-led companies tend to experience accelerated growth, best-in-class unit economics, and strong valuation multiples compared to peers. And now Developer centric tools and landscape are churning out from India.

Just like the journey of deep technologies in India, it has been a slow and gradual one.  While globally, this industry is among the largest and fastest-growing industries out there, when we take a microscopic look at the Indian market, it has been rather slow. 

According to GitHub there are approximately 5.8 million developers in India right now. But for a long time, the developer centric tools and technology choices available to these developers, a major chunk of those services had been coming from the west. And it wasn't until very recently that the quality of India-based developer centric tools began to rise with the likes of Postman and Hasura making strides. But this has gained momentum in recent years.

In this article, we’re going to talk about some of the best and useful developer centric tools based out of India. And how India is contributing to the fastest emerging ‘developer landscape’ segment.

1. Hasura

With valuation at more than $1 billion, Hasura is a data access as a service for building Apps and APIs.  Connect it to your new or existing databases to instantly get a production grade GraphQL API.

For a lot of developers, Hasura has made GraphQL easy to understand.

It makes your data accessible on a real-time GraphQL API, so you can build modern apps and APIs much faster. Hasura connects to the database, REST servers, GraphQL servers, and third-party APIs. It provides a unified and instant GraphQL API across multiple data sources

Hasura’s instant real-time GraphQL APIs engine needs a bit more time to mature and blossom into a full-blown power tool for big commercial applications.   

Co-founders: Tanmai Gopal (LI, TW) and Rajoshi Ghosh (LI, TW)

2. Postman

Valuation at $5.6 billion. This was a simple browser plugin that tested APIs without needing customized scripts. 

The Postman API platform is a one-stop solution for the entire API development cycle. By 2021, Postman has grown to be one of the most loved developer platforms in the world. It has grown to over 15M users and has a dizzying valuation of over $5.6B. This is the growth story of what we consider to be one of the most special companies to be built out of Bangalore! Postman ensures it collaborates with early adopters and is obsessed with product reviews and feedback.

Co-founders : Abhinav Asthana (LI, TW),  Abhijit Kane (LI), Ankit Sobti (LI, TW)

3. DronaHQ

Raised an angel fund in 2018 DronaHQ is a SaaS-based low code platform designed to help users with building custom mobile and web business applications. It offers a rich UI Builder, Visual Controls, a Rule Engine, a ready-to-use database, and API connectors. With DronaHQ, development teams can streamline operations by automating everyday tasks and processes which are manual, paper, and email-based. The platform reduces the time and labor required to develop and publish software. 

DronaHQ apps are suited for different department needs, such as finance, human resources, sales, procurement, field service, fast-moving consumer goods, and operations. Multiple Database connectors, Zapier, and API integrations allow users to connect the platform with third-party CRM and ERP systems including Google Drive, Salesforce, QuickBooks, Trello, and more. Applications created within DronaHQ can be accessed via iOS, Android, Web, and Desktop platforms. It offers on-cloud and on-premise deployment options.

Co-Founders: Divyesh Kharade (LI, TW), Jinen Dedhia (LI, TW)

4. Zoho One

 Launched in 2017, Zoho One is a suite of business apps tailor made to address various aspects of the business. Referred to as the "operating system for business" Zoho One includes more than fifty integrated business applications and mobile apps for Android and iOS in one central system accessible through a single sign-on. These applications handle processes in multiple departments - marketing, business intelligence, human resource, field operations, communication. 

This service is enhancing remote collaboration and making lives easier for teams to stay in sync while working remotely. 

For developers, Zoho One plays a collaborative project management solution that could enable users working on different projects to track bugs and quality assurance, among other tasks. to maintain an internal knowledge base and to share documentation with their clients.

CEO and Founder Sridhar Vembu (TW).

5. NimbleBox ai

This is an AI startup specializing in customizable GPU and CPU machines built specifically for developers and researchers

This platform is purpose-built for large datasets and supports all major ML frameworks, enabling developers to train/deploy at a large scale while maintaining accuracy, claims the startup. The platform currently caters to over 10,000+ developers in 30+ countries, as well as leading enterprises such as Intel, UpGrad, and TCS across the globe. 

NimbleBox works with top companies like Intel and TCS to help their employees develop in Artificial Intelligence. The seamless programming and deployment experience, combined with an expanding catalog of updated industry projects, empowers employees to specialize in the segments they operate in at ease. Multiple education companies and institutions like UpGrad, Holberton School, and Great Learning also utilize the collaborative features of the platform as an online lab for their learners.

Co-founders : Anshuman Pandey (LI, TW), Naman Maheshwari (LI, TW), Rohan Pooniwala (LI, TW)

6. Dcoder

Dcoder is a mobile coding platform (IDE) for next-gen programmers and coders of all skill levels to be able to code on mobile in 35+ programming languages. Less than 6MB in size, Dcoder's mobile IDE has a unique code editor which is equally powerful as a desktop with features like Syntax Highlighting, Code Compilation, Auto Indent, etc.

Dcoder lets programmers, coders, hackers, and students code on mobile and practice their skills and improve it with the resources they have. They write the code on the phone on Dcoder’s code editor. It is then sent to the cloud servers where it is compiled and executed, and the output is redirected to the mobile screen. CodeNow, which is Dcoder’s code editor, allows developers to select a programming language to write code, or you can also select a template from the options on the app.

Algoyo, a section on the Dcoder app, lists challenges that developers can participate in. It allows them to showcase their coding skills and find a place on the ‘Global Leaderboard’ according to their ranking.

Founder : Ankush Chugh (LITW)

7. Arcana Network

Arcana is the Storage Layer of Ethereum. This Web 3 start-up is building a developer-friendly stack for secure, privacy-focused apps. Arcana provides a Privacy Stack SDK to DApp developers on EVM compatible blockchains chains to build Privacy-First products.

To achieve what developers could do with Arcana, they would have to put together different protocols, such as Filecoin or IPFS for decentralized storage, key management, authentication, and so on. Arcana’s goal is to bring developer-friendly tools and services built on design principles of privacy. This allows devs to ensure privacy right from product inception. This removes the need for patchwork at a later stage

This is entirely transparent with cryptographic proof and verifiability using blockchain.

Co-founder: Mayur Relekar (LI, TW), Aravindh Kumar (LI, TW)

8. Get Fastah

Fastah's Geolocation API helps developers and businesses build fast apps with geo-targeting, displaying country or city-specific pages, spam avoidance, analytics, time-zone-related scheduling, and visualization capabilities. Running on Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure for high reliability and dependable API performance, its mobile internet latency maps shine the light on user experience. 

Founder: Siddharth Mathur (LI, TW)

9. Hashnode

Hashnode is a free blogging platform for developers to connect and share knowledge easily!

For a developer who has just finished a rather ambitious project, writing down their key learnings from the project as a developer and sharing it over a platform is empowering. Many developers use it as a means of note-taking for themselves as well so they can come back and refer to the steps they took to accomplish their projects. 

The blog is under a site they entirely own, and at the same time, reap the benefits of hosted software tailor-made for developer blogging and be part of a social center around developer writing. Hashnode takes care of overheads like SEO optimization. Users will find developer-centric features like syntax highlighting and writing in markdown. The content is in the developer’s GitHub repo. 

Co - Founders: Syed Fazle Rahman (LI, TW) , Sandeep Panda (LI, TW)

10. Requestly

Requestly is a lightweight proxy available as a browser extension & desktop app to intercept & modify network requests. You can use requestly to Mock API Responses, Modify Headers, Redirect Url and Delay/Throttle requests, etc. It allows developers to collaborate by sharing rules.

It is built for intercepting and modifying HTTP(s) requests. Requestly is stupid simple to use with a beautiful and clean UI and has no distractions or annoying popups and the best part? It's free to use!

This all-in-one network request interceptor and debugging tool simplifies debugging by making sure the requests and responses that developers need to manipulate are listed in an orderly manner. Developers don't need to go through long lists of error messages or requests to find the problem. The platform offers capabilities such as redirecting production to the local environment, mocking API responses, simulating HTML responses status codes, simulating delays, inserting scripts to a website 

Co-founders: Sachin jain (LI, TW), Sagar Soni (LI, TW)
 

11. FifthTry

FifthTry is a documentation tool designed to curb the documentation rot. It integrates with GitHub and blocks code changes from getting deployed till documentation has been updated and approved. Referred to as Continuous Documentation. This tool simplifies documentation for developers by directly integrating with GitHub pull requests, and allows developers to make sure no code goes live without an updated documentation.
This tool helps to document UI screens, behavior and journeys, database tables, APIs, deploy or monitor microservice that makes web or mobile product teams productive, enabling users to create change requests to implement changes to documentation.

Founder :Amit Upadhyay (LITW)

12. Recro

Recro is a developer-focused platform founded to match individual expertise with the correct opportunities. 

It empowers developers by providing them with relevant experience at fast-growing startups based on technical competencies and aspirations. These opportunities have a huge impact on the career success of developers and help them become their best selves. 

Simultaneously, startups get quick access to top-quality developers with guaranteed productivity from the beginning. The platform helps them to scale up/down based on their needs, thus ensuring an efficient and high-yielding workforce. 

Developers solve real-time problems and get exposed to the work culture at start-ups like Flipkart, Dunzo, Swiggy, and Zivame amongst many other such companies

Founder / CEO :Shubham Rastogi (LI, TW)

13. InstaSafe

InstaSafe firmly believes that cybersecurity is an implementable concept. It needs to become more accessible, scalable, and simple. This becomes even more important in the current context, with businesses moving to the cloud, and working from home becoming a concept

They are committed to delivering an uncompromisingly secure cloud and remote journey for businesses and workforces with their security solutions.

Co - founders: Sandip Panda (LI, TW), Biju George LI, Prashanth Guruswamy LI

14. Rivia.AI

Rivia.AI is a chrome extension that enables people to quickly record their workflows and converts them into a beautiful step-by-step guide, filled with screenshots. Your documents can be edited, annotated, or redacted as per your requirements and you can instantly share them through public links.

Project teams use Rivia.AI for creating onboarding guides and documentation for internal tools. This can also be used to create product documentation, training guides, or for sharing know-how across the org.

Co-founders: Samay Jain (LI, TW) and Prabal Agarwal (LI, TW)

15. Polygon

Polygon is a decentralized Ethereum scaling platform that allows developers to build user-friendly dApps that have low transaction fees and do not sacrifice security. dApps built with Polygon have instant credibility. 

Polygon combines the best of Ethereum and sovereign blockchain into an intricate multi-chain system. It can truly benefit from Ethereums’ network effects. It is inherently more secure. It is more open and powerful.

Co-founders - Jaynti Kanani (LI, TW), Anurag Arjun (LI, TW), Mihailo Bjelic (LI, TW), Sandeep Nailwal (LI, TW)


Of the developer platforms and tools and services listed above, some are established and making strides while some have just begun taking flight. So it is needless to say that we have a nice and exciting road ahead for new services to take birth in the country. It is heartening to see Indian brands prove their resilience by developing innovative solutions for developers across the globe. We need to ensure the growth trajectory of this segment.

Of the developer platforms and tools and services listed above, some are established and making strides while some have just begun taking flight. So it is needless to say that we have a nice and exciting road ahead for new services to take birth in the country. It is heartening to see Indian brands prove their resilience by developing innovative solutions for developers across the globe. We need to ensure the growth trajectory of this segment.

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