Low code is a technology that provides developers with a development environment for quickly creating application software through a visual interface and configuration. In 2018, Siemens acquired Mendix, a low-code company, and Outsystems, a low-code unicorn in the United States, received US$150 million in financing. The occurrence of these two events brought the low-code market into the perspective of capital, and China's low-code market is also at this time into the development period. According to statistics, the investment and financing behavior of China's low-code industry has accelerated significantly after 2020, and the amount of financing has also increased accordingly, and the interest of the capital is obvious. At the same time, the current financing rounds are in the early stage. In addition to famous primary market investors such as Wuyuan, GGV, and Sequoia, there are many Internet giants such as Byte and Bilibili.
In fact, as early as 2014, the industry had already proposed the concept of low-code, followed by the successive launch of low-code platforms at home and abroad and their popularity, until now it is still showing a positive growth trend. In 2023, China's low-code market The annual growth rate of scale has reached 39.9%, and a group of VCs have coerced startups into the low-code battle, which makes this wave of low-code more prosperous.
So, why does a slightly "retro" industry maintain a vigorous vitality and receive continuous attention from many industry participants?
From the demand side, the rapid development of digitalization in various industries requires more efficient, agile, and low-cost technology development tools to meet the needs of actual business. The three-year-long epidemic has greatly accelerated the digital transformation process of various industries. Industry users are actively exploring technological means to improve business productivity and reshape business models to varying degrees. However, with the increase of actual business needs, the productivity of technology development is gradually unable to meet all needs, which to a certain extent restricts the efficiency of digital practice.
This situation promotes the intrusion of low-code tools. In the tide of digital transformation, low-code can reduce the time opportunity cost of enterprise digital transformation. IT giant Microsoft believes that 450 million new applications will be developed in the next five years, which is more than all applications developed in the past 40 years. Enterprises can use low-code to capture new market opportunities, try new business models, use digital technology to improve operational and decision-making efficiency, and obtain several times the benefits of the digital economy. This has become an important driver for the industry to roll out low-code platforms.
From the supply side, the continuous development of software technology has laid a good foundation for the industrial production of software. The development of programming technology has always been developed around the directions of "generality", "low threshold" and "high efficiency". The programming method is from "binary->assembly->high-level language->integrated IDE->visual development environment" Evolve gradually. Each generation of programming language aims to provide a higher level of abstraction for the details of computer hardware, making the language more programmer-friendly, more powerful, and more general.
After the advent of the consumer Internet and cloud computing era, the explosive growth of end users of information systems has driven the accelerated development of IT technology, and low-code technology has been able to take shape, mainly because the front-end technology of WEB applications and the foundation of model-based design have become more and more mature. This also provides an excellent opportunity for Internet companies and startups to enter the ToB enterprise software service market
Fundamentally speaking, the direct benefit of low code is cost reduction and efficiency increase. Low-code is a visual approach to software development that delivers applications faster with minimal hand-coding. The graphical user interface and drag-and-drop functionality based on the low-code platform automates all aspects of the development process and eliminates the dependence on traditional computer programming methods. Great reduction. According to the survey and research, low-code will directly "cannibalize" the market share of application software and customized development, bringing a profound efficiency revolution to the industry.
In the past few years, low-code technology has become a new outlet in various industries, and the market size has grown rapidly. In the future, driven by the integration of the two industries and the transformation of digital intelligence, low-code technology will take advantage of the wind and show a different style.