Razorpay’s successive profitable year

Hello,

India’s economy fared below expectations in the three months through December as a gloomy global outlook and rising borrowing costs hurt manufacturing and consumption.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose 4.4% from a year ago last quarter, according to data released by the Statistics Ministry. It was 11.2% in October-December 2021.

Meanwhile, the NSO maintained its growth projection of 7% in the second advance estimate for the current fiscal.

In other news, it’s the battle of the AIs at big techs.

Microsoft’s Windows 11 update is now equipped with its recently upgraded Bing search engine, which will put AI at the fingertips of hundreds of millions of people.

At the same time, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is building “a new top-level product group” to integrate generative AI into its services used by billions of users.

The company is starting by testing text-based AI tools on WhatsApp and Messenger—presumably ChatGPT-style conversation bots.

ICYMI: Here’s a photograph of a breaking wave that unmistakably looks like a human face!

Understandably, photographer Ian Sproat was stunned when he captured it at a lighthouse in Sunderland, England.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about

• Razorpay’s successive profitable year
• Reaching high with hardware startups
• Mitigating crypto crashes

Here’s your trivia for today: What is the name of the literary device that imitates the sound associated with it?

Fintech

Razorpay’s successive profitable year

Fintech unicorn Razorpay, which had turned profitable in FY21 on a standalone basis, recorded a profit of Rs 7.3 crore, up by 18% in FY22. It is yet to post profits on a consolidated basis. Its total revenue for the fiscal jumped 75% to Rs 1,485.7 crore from Rs 844.6 crore.

Cha-ching:

• The fintech’s total expenses stood at Rs 1,476.4 crore, up by 76% from Rs 838.94 crore in FY21.
• The Bengaluru-based firm focused on scaling its product with a slew of acquisitions last year.
• Its newly-introduced lending and neo-banking businesses—Razorpay Capital and Razorpay X—which make up for under 10% of revenue, are incurring losses, the founders had told Forbes.

Enterprise

Reaching high with hardware startups

India has an estimated 75,000 startups, and a vast majority of these fall under the software category. This means that France-headquartered design software technology company Dassault Systemes had to look far and wide to zero in on startups in the hardware category.

Bigger goal:

• The company, which entered India in the late 90s, has provided software support to over 2,000 hardware companies in the country via its startup engagement programme.
• Its 3D Experience Lab—the R&D setup of the company—has already had five cohorts since its launch in 2018.
• Dassault Systemes has created an ecosystem, where it engages with influencers, students, and medical professionals, and has partnered with NITI Aayog and Shiv Nadar University to foster entrepreneurship.

Web3

Mitigating crypto crashes

Think tank for emerging technology Policy 4.0 released a report today, highlighting the interdependencies in the crypto ecosystem and proposing risk management frameworks to mitigate and potentially prevent cascading crashes like USDTerra-Luna and FTX.

Key takeaways:

• Policy 4.0 suggests crypto institutions should make the effort to understand established interconnections and interactions that each crypto system has with the outside world.
• The think tank also called for greater internal board oversight and corporate governance strategies.
• Policy 4.0's analysis on the crypto contagion and recommendations around risk management comes at a time when there are no central, globally-accepted frameworks on regulating crypto.

News & updates

• Crypto fail: Visa and Mastercard have decided to push back the launch of certain crypto-related products and services until market conditions and the regulatory environment improve after a string of high-profile collapses shook faith in the industry, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
• Losing stars: Two of the world’s top chefs in France have lost one of their three Michelin stars in a continuing downgrade that has hit renowned restaurants in recent months. Celebrity chef Guy Savoy’s eponymous restaurant and Christopher Coutanceau, a three-star establishment that specialises in seafood, suffered the ratings hit.
• Heat waves: India is likely to experience heat waves between March and May, especially in the key wheat-producing central and northern states. A heat wave for the second straight year could dent the production of wheat, rapeseed, and chickpeas, and complicate the government’s efforts to bring down food inflation.

What is the name of the literary device that imitates the sound associated with it?

Answer: An onomatopoeia

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