‘Venture Engine’ hailed as resounding success

• Nine budding entrepreneurs receive funding from Rs. 100 million raised to start up businesses

By Cassandra Mascarenhas

Strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit amongst the youth in the country and driving forth the culture of venture capitalism which is still quite a new concept in Sri Lanka, ‘Venture Engine,’ a competition created in order to produce an opening for the country’s budding young entrepreneurs, reached its climax as the winner, picked from over 70 entries, was announced in Colombo on Wednesday.

The potential showcased at this event was so immense that it prompted a team of investors, namely Blue Ocean Ventures Co-Founder and Managing Director Prajeeth Balasubramaniam, Calamander Capital Director Mafaz Ishaq, Orion City CEO Jeevan Gnanam, Argent Capital Managing Director Apurva Udeshi, Ridgecrest CEO Sanath Fernando and Blue Ocean Ventures Chairman Rajan Anandan, to create the Lankan Angel Network.

The LAN will focus on continuing to provide mentoring and creating investment opportunities for Sri Lankan Entrepreneurs.

Winners of the start up challenge Venture Engine's awards ceremony on Wednesday – Pix by Upul Abayasekara

The 70 initial entries were finally painstakingly whittled down to nine ventures and although the coveted first place was scooped up by ‘24/7 Techies’ with Lanka BPO coming in second and Trekurious in third, all nine were winners that night as each will receive funding from Rs. 100 million raised and will go on to start up their businesses within a month.  

“We created Blue Ocean Capital with the objective of providing seed capital to budding businesspeople and our Indian counterpart has helped us immensely in many ways. We wanted to create a platform to accelerate their businesses to the next level and boost the resources available to them. Although the top three have been picked, in my mind they have all won as they will all be starting up their own companies very soon,” said Blue Ocean Ventures Co-Founder and Managing Director Prajeeth Balasubramaniam.

The brainchild of Blue Ocean Ventures and the Indian Angel Network and backed by platinum sponsors Dialog Axiata and Expolanka Holdings PLC, Venture Engine is a unique initiative geared to provide entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka with real opportunities to build their businesses.

“This is an exciting occasion and it couldn’t get any better for a first time, having attracted 70 entrepreneurs to come to us on this platform. We are also extremely excited to be working with Blue Ocean Ventures,” noted Indian Angel Network President Padmaja Ruparel. The Indian Angel Network is one of the leading angel investor networks in India and currently has over 200 investors across the country.

“The icing on the cake is that all nine finalists have come up with ventures in the key sectors that Sri Lanka wants to grow and it’s great to see the best entrepreneurs come up from these sectors,” she observed.

Launched on 1 March 2012, the initiative received an overwhelming response with a multitude of high quality business plans coming in, so much so that not only did the organizers extend the submission deadline to meet demand but also added more evaluation sessions to the event calendar to give further opportunities for each team to pitch to investors.

After nearly four months of preparing their plans, presenting to eminent judging panels and receiving invaluable mentoring sessions by leaders in the industry, the top nine were selected who went onto make a final presentation to a panel of 13 leading Indian and Sri Lankan investors with global expertise.

“Standing here today reminds me of the days when I started my own business. This is about seeing entrepreneurs with business plans getting mentored and I admire the courage that they had to come forward with their ideas. Expolanka is always looking to empower budding entrepreneurs who encapsulate the dare-to-do spirit that is part of our DNA and this is why Venture Engine was the ideal project for us to support,” expressed Expolanka Group CEO Hanif Yusoof.

Dialog Axiata PLC Group CCO Kavan Ratnayaka stated that Dialog is proud to be a part of such a initiative, having been in a similar situation themselves not too long ago, back when they were small and struggling. “We are backing this initiative because it plays very well to our ethos of ‘The Future. Today.’ We are also hoping to identity our future in some of these entrepreneurs today and hope to prosper and be successful together.”

After such a resounding success, Venture Engine will definitely be back in 2013 and all signs point towards an even bigger response from budding entrepreneurs. For more information and updates, visit www.ventureengine.lk.