India, like the United States, is wary about Chinese apps. The South Asian country has been on a ban spree to limit the operation of Chinese apps that have for years dominated its market.

The ban intensified in 2020, following a territorial conflict between India and China, but slowed down after several Chinese apps were permanently banned. Now, the Indian authorities are once again, shutting apps with Chinese links.

India has banned Tencent’s Xriver, Garena’s Free Fire, NetEase’s Onmyoji Arena and Astracraft and 50 more apps with apparent links to China, the latest in a series of similar blockings over the past one and half years on national security grounds. TechCrunch has the report.

Some of the newly prohibited apps, which include Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera, Viva Video Editor, AppLock and Dual Space Lite, are clones or rebrands of many of the over 300 apps affiliated with Beijing that New Delhi has banned since mid-2020 amid escalating geopolitical tension among the two neighboring nations over protracted border dispute.

The South Asian nation’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, citing the Section 69a of the IT ACT, 2000, placed the order, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson acknowledged the order and said the firm was complying.

“On receipt of the interim order passed under Section 69A of the IT Act, following established process, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India,” a Google spokesperson said Monday.

“Garena’s Free Fire: Illuminate,” which has already been pulled from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store in India, appears to be the most popular app to be blocked in the latest batch.

The Southeast Asian giant Sea-owned battle royal game had over 40 million of its 75 million globally monthly active users in India in January, according to analytics firm App Annie, data of which an industry executive shared with TechCrunch. Sea, which counts Tencent among its largest backers, is quietly also testing its social commerce Shopee in India.

The news of the ban has come as a surprise to Garena’s team in India. The firm was chasing deals with tournament organizations to further promote its game and attract more users and high-profile gamers in the country, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Sea did not have an immediate comment on the development.

The series of app blockings in India began in late June 2020 when the world’s second largest internet market banned TikTok, Alibaba’s UC Browser and Tencent’s WeChat and dozens of other apps with links to China over national security concerns.

New Delhi, which has never explicitly mentioned China in these announcements, did not make an official statement on its move Monday. With most of the previous bans, New Delhi has said the way the apps have compiled, mined, and profiled users’ data posted risks to national security and defense of India.

In the past one and a half years, the Indian government has banned over 300 Chinese-linked apps including popular title PUBG. That game remains the only known app that has made a return to Google Play Store and Apple’s AppStore in India in some way.

Several other firms and app operators have attempted to address New Delhi’s concerns, but the Indian government retained its decision early last year after deeming the responses inadequate.

India is by far the largest market globally by app installs. Last year, the South Asian nation clocked over 25 billion downloads, according to App Annie.

US giants as well as firms from other nations including China and South Korea aggressively focused on India in the past decade as they looked for the next great growth region. In comparison, only a handful of Indian firms operate in China.

After India refused to revoke its ban on TikTok, ByteDance (the app’s parent firm) laid off the vast majority of its employee base in India and recently shut down its edtech business in the country, TechCrunch reported.

TikTok’s ban in India, which prompted several local startups to launch short video apps, gain traction and raise over $1 billion, did not make much impact on ByteDance’s revenue as the firm made deep inroads in several other overseas markets. Indian social network ShareChat and on-demand streaming service MX Player said last week they were merging their short-video apps in the country in what TechCrunch reported is a $900 million deal.

It is now official: Flutterwave is the largest financial institution in Nigeria. Yes, its valuation is bigger than any bank in Nigeria by at least a billion dollars. Just this weekend, in Tekedia, I dropped this potential $3 billion number, as I discussed innovation, and creating a new basis of competition in markets.

Yes, this morning, Flutterwave announced that it has secured $250m in Series D funding led by B Capital Group, resulting in a valuation of over $3bn. I left a message on WhatsApp to CEO Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola with “Your continent salutes you…Nations rise when great entrepreneurs emerge. Thank you for changing your nation and continent.”

In the past five years, Flutterwave has been on a mission to create endless possibilities for customers and businesses in Africa and the emerging markets. To date, the company has served over 900,000 businesses, processed over 200M transactions worth over USD $16B across 34 countries in Africa. With the Series D funding, Flutterwave will accelerate customer acquisition and growth through M&A as well as develop complementary products.

The next destination: ringing the bell by next year in New York. This type of ascension will become common because 9 new unicorns are joining by Dec 2023 in Africa. Yes, the digitization of Africa’s economies will be decades-long.

==Press Release======

Flutterwave, a leading technology company, announced today that it has raised USD $250 million in Series D funding, valuing the company at over $3 billion as the brand continues to transform the way Africans transact on the continent and worldwide

Flutterwave has become the highest valued African start-up with this investment. It is a validation of African talent, innovation and its young inspiring people. It is also a huge endorsement in the growth of the business, innovation and technology landscape in Africa.

Flutterwave’s latest backers include some of the world’s most respected investors led by B Capital Group, and with participation from Alta Park Capital, Whale Rock Capital, Lux Capital, among others. Several existing investors who also participated in previous rounds also followed this round, including, Glynn Capital, Avenir Growth, Tiger Global, Green Visor Capital and Salesforce Ventures. The new funds will drive Flutterwave’s ambitious expansion plan to accelerate customer acquisition in existing markets and growth through M&A, and develop complementary products while encouraging new innovations in its products and services development.  The Company will share more details during the Flutterwave 3.0 event.

Since its inception in 2016, the Flutterwave team has been on a mission to create endless possibilities for customers and businesses in Africa and the emerging markets. The Series D fundraise comes on the back of an impressive run of five years in which Flutterwave has processed over 200M transactions worth over USD $16B to date across 34 countries in Africa. It also follows a year of rapid growth for the brand which now serves over 900,000 businesses across the globe.

In 2021, Flutterwave launched a range of new products including Flutterwave Market for merchants to sell their goods via an online marketplace and, most recently, Send, a remittance service that empowers customers to seamlessly send money to recipients to and from Africa. Flutterwave has also partnered with leading global and pan-African technology and telecommunication companies such as PayPal, MTN, Airtel Africa to drive financial inclusion on the continent and create endless possibilities for customers who can build customisable payment applications through its APIs.

Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, said “Our story is that of resilience and hard work. Our growth so far is due to the support of our customers, our partners, the banks, the public, the regulators, and importantly our people. The Central Bank of Nigeria, under the leadership of Dr. Godwin Emefiele, laid the vision of a transformational Payment System in Nigeria, provided the framework for innovation in this space, and has continued to create regulations that have enabled us to grow and thrive. We are grateful to them and to all the other Central Banks in all the countries where we operate. We set out to build a platform that simplifies payments for everyone and today, our solutions are used across the globe to connect Africans to the world and the world to Africans. We are delighted that investors believe in us and our story and are committing their resources to this belief. This latest funding demonstrates the conviction of some of the world’s leading investors in both our business model, team and the Africa technology market. It gives Flutterwave the much-needed support to deliver on our plans to provide the best experience for our merchants and customers around the world.”

Matt Levinson, Partner at B Capital said, “At B Capital, we seek to back generational companies with broad platform potential. Flutterwave has a unique opportunity to accomplish this as the dominant payments infrastructure provider across Africa. In addition to their emergence as the leading enterprise payments processor for the continent, Flutterwave is innovating at breakneck speed with novel fintech solutions for large corporates, SMEs and consumers. I’ve had the pleasure of backing this world-class team since 2017 and couldn’t be more thrilled that B Capital is leading their Series D. Flutterwave may ultimately build one of the most consequential fintech business in the world, enabling hundreds of thousands of merchants to transact online and connect Africa to the global economy.”

David Glynn, Managing Partner of Glynn Capital, said: “We believe the digitization of payments globally is one of the largest and most important trends in technology. Having been investors in Flutterwave since 2017, we have had a front row seat in seeing Flutterwave establish itself as a leading payments company in Africa as it drives adoption of seamless digital payments experiences for merchants and consumers alike. We look forward to supporting the company as it addresses its significant growth opportunity in the years ahead.”

This latest fundraising has seen Flutterwave’s valuation more than triple since its last funding round in March last year when it became one of Africa’s fastest-growing Unicorn.