Sri Lanka’s most exciting new Tech firms
Technology can be a great leveler. Firms determined to build products thereby creating their own intellectual property have an opportunity – because of the internet – to distribute worldwide. New opportunities are also emerging; enabling any firm that quickly seizes them to become globally dominant in quick time. These trends will also disrupt established business […]
Technology can be a great leveler. Firms determined to build products thereby creating their own intellectual property have an opportunity – because of the internet – to distribute worldwide. New opportunities are also emerging; enabling any firm that quickly seizes them to become globally dominant in quick time. These trends will also disrupt established business because a number of technology firms are focusing their services on the Sri Lankan market.
The explosive growth of smartphones and tablets is one trend that firms on our list seem to be out to capitalize on. Medical Joyworks, which is on our list, has become a producer of some of the most popular medical apps on earth. Applications with a social aspect at the heart of their strategy will also emerge. Yamu.lk is imagining how they can sell stuff from third parties to the thousands who read their independent restaurant reviews.
So what’s going to be the next big technology product company to emerge from Sri Lanka? There are many exciting technology start-ups, but Echelon’s search focused on firms that were building products, or creating their own intellectual property. That eliminates many IT firms here that build software their clients want. Another criteria we used in selecting the seven that we have was that they be five years or younger as firms. Not all these firms are headquartered here, even the ones that are soon want to incorporate in the US or elsewhere where their users and potential funders maybe based. This has not disqualified them from being in our list, for which we sought out firms that were in a general sense Sri Lankan. Other criteria included recent growth in the business and track record of founders. Since these are all private firms we have sought key information from the firms themselves about revenue projections, angel funding and shareholders; it’s difficult for us to verify the accuracy of this information from independent third parties.
This list by no means is comprehensive. We have tried only to identify some product firms that we thought were interesting. There may be others about whom we would certainly like to write about in the future.
Click on a link below to read more about each of the featured companies.