Sri Lanka’s ‘Forestpin’ amongst 12 winners to join EY’s start-up incubator

EY Sri Lanka and Maldives Senior Partner and Head of Consulting Arjuna Herath, Forestpin Co-founder Director Dilanke Hettiaratchi, Country Managing Partner Sri Lanka Ruwan Fernando, Forestpin Co-founder Managing Director Ransith Fernando, EY Sri Lanka and Maldives Senior Partner and Head of Tax Services Duminda Hulangamuwa, and EY Sri Lanka Partner Tax Services Roshini Fernando

EY start-up incubator, EY Foundry, welcomes its fourth cohort of start-ups across Asia-Pacific this February. EY announced 12 winning start-up participants selected as part of the fourth cohort of EY Foundry (EY Foundry cohort 4) with Sri Lanka’s start-up ‘Forestpin’ amongst the 12 winners to join the program. 

‘Forestpin’ was founded with an ambition to empower and inspire businesses through insightful data. As a data analytics company, today its core business is highlighting anomalous transactions in client company data. Its application sits independently, extracts data from the client’s enterprise system, runs it through a multitude of mathematical and statistical algorithms and highlights transactions which are out of place. Its services benefits businesses to prevent financial loss at the right time that may otherwise be the tradition old reactive ways of addressing fraud. 

EY Foundry is a dedicated incubation program for early stage start-ups in the accounting, tax, fintech, legal tech, regulation tech and HR tech space. Unlike the previous years, EY Foundry cohort 4 will be a virtually run program and this year is the first to include expanded geographic coverage including Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka. This is an expansion of five countries (previously run only in Sydney and Singapore). Over 270 applications were submitted – the most that the EY organisation (EY) has received to date. 

EY Asia-Pacific Tax Innovation Leader Patricia Xia stated, “The large pool of high calibre start-ups made it extremely difficult to select the winning participants. It is also reflective of the quality of entrepreneurs from across Asean and Oceania. We’re incredibly excited to begin our journey with the selected participants and we look forward to working together to solve pressing tax, compliance and business efficiency challenges that we and EY clients are facing.”

Cohort 4 begins in early March 2021 for a period of six months and the participants will receive $ 120 k worth of Microsoft Azure credits, part of the ongoing support from Microsoft for Start-ups. These credits help founders to develop their technology stack. Participants will also benefit from a range of EY industry insights and a wealth of EY experience in improving business growth. EY has no equity stake in the participating start-ups, allowing founders to maintain full ownership and control of their businesses. 

Ernst & Young Sri Lanka Partner Tax Services Roshini Fernando commenting on the launch shared, “It was shared that an impressive range of business services were offered by these winning participants that includes making accounting and payments smarter, automating business processes, improving credit accessibility, as well as helping leaders gain insight into their business and people data. All of them demonstrating how the application of technological innovation can be used by businesses to accelerate their own digital transformation – a key business priority in the post-pandemic new normal. To see one of our very own startups gain access to the programme is yet another to showcase the potential of Sri Lankan start-ups and the lengths we could reach as an ecosystem. We are greatly encouraged by the Sri Lankan start-up ecosystem’s support and interest in the EY Foundry program.”

Locally, EY extends its local, regional and global platforms and resources to support the expansion of the start-up ecosystem in Sri Lanka. Amongst many such initiatives, prominence is given to its collaboration with University Business Linkage Cell (UBLC) program, EY Global Entrepreneurial Winning Women program, and the EY Foundry. 

Forestpin Co-founder Director Dilanke Hettiaratchi said, “Today we consider ourselves a dormant watchdog for business transactions of our elite clients. We have alerted transactions exceeding $ 4 million in human errors and $ 28 million in process improvements. EY Foundry is a doorway to startups like us to gain access to expertise and network of one of the best global organisations. 

Forestpin Co-founder Managing Director Ransith Fernando stated that he hopes that the success of Forestpin would inspire many more Sri Lankan companies to get into future EY Foundry programs. 

Over the past two years, the EY Foundry program has incubated three cohorts, a total of 12 start-ups and facilitated over 450 meetings, product demonstrations to EY and enterprise teams and helped to facilitate technology pilots within the global EY network. EY Foundry has also been a diverse and inclusive program with a strong female-led presence throughout prior cohorts.

To qualify for the EY Foundry program, applicants had to fulfil the following criteria:

An early stage (pre-series A funding) start-up that is technology or product-related 

Potential applications to the tax, accounting, fintech, legal tech, regulatory tech, compliance tech or HR tech industries.

Having a working prototype or working toward having a prototype that is scalable 

Having a leadership team with demonstrated experience in the relevant industry

Being able to provide business pitch materials or video in the application.

For more information, visit www.ey.com/eyfoundry.