JohnKeellsX – Alumni Teams

JKX Accelerate

JKX Innovate

JKX Elevate

JKX Accelerate

JKX Innovate

JKX Elevate

Markify

2016 PRE-ACCELERATOR FINALIST

Markify is a speech-driven, SaaS analytics and data searching service. A manager, for example, can use natural language voice commands to draw up a series of graphs and analytics using the parameters stated in the command. As part of the demo, the platform was used to crawl through product data on Amazon to find out gaps in inventory (a missing color or size) that would increase sales.

Websutra

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

A secure and convenient payment option through your mobile phone – Payments made simple.

Vyral

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

A location first social platform to discover what is happening around by connecting with the local community.

Urbandine

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Providing a seamless customer experience in terms of restaurant table reservations, ordering menu items, splitting bills, customer reviews and engagements.

Traverlust

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Using AI to create relevant and informative travel packages.

Travelers' Conquest

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

An activity based real life travel game that is a ‘Gamified Voyage into a Sustainable Future’

Shoutout

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

A customer engagement platform to collect customer data, segment them and send targeted SMS/Emails thereby improving customer retention and engagement.

SenzAgro

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

First sensor-based precision agriculture solution in Sri Lanka – Technology to feed the world.

Roda

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Revolutionizing fleet management by means of a cloud ecosystem that uses the OBD port to provide diagnostic and analytics.

Park & Pay

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Find your parking slot and pay through your mobile phone with this product which is a mobile app that eliminates all your parking problems.

MyTution.lk

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

A simple, efficient and interactive learning platform, for anyone to learn anything, at any time!

Meal Rides

2018 PRE-ACCELERATOR

An on-demand food delivery business powered by a suite of mobile and web apps that connects consumers, restaurants, and delivery riders so that you can get your “Cravings Delivered”.

DirectPay

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

An electronic payment option that provides a viable alternative to cash, POS and MPOS systems while providing convenience to the end customer.

Iloan

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

A borrower driven online loan aggregator/powering engine, with the objective of bringing a wide variety of lenders to borrowers – Access to finance at your fingertips.

Helios

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

Revolutionizing peer-to-peer lending by leveraging blockchain technology.

Greasmonkey.lk

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

An e-commerce platform that is dedicated for automotive products and services

Local In Your Pocket

2018 ACCELERATOR

An AI based Human – Tech ‘guide’ to the wonders of our Paradise Island whilst providing unique offers by handpicked vendors.

Giftup

2019 ACCELERATOR

“GIFTUP” is Sri Lanka’s e-Gift voucher platform for consumers and merchants of small and large scale. Now you can send your loved ones a gift voucher instantly and let them know that you have them in your thoughts. Simply select a merchant, a value for your voucher and type in your loved one’s mobile number or email and send them the gift voucher instantly.

Eat Fit

2018 ACCELERATOR

One click lifestyle app for customers to get healthy and affordable meals delivered.

Direct2Door

2018 ACCELERATOR

The access point for every households requirement
– Household concierge platform / Last mile for Retail

Ananke

2019 ACCELERATOR

ANANKE is a platform built ground up for the Internet of Things. It provides general API interfaces, IoT-specific development tools and functional capabilities making it easy to develop and deliver powerful IoT solutions.

iStay

2019 ACCELERATOR

iStay is an end-to-end digital hospitality solution where guests can order services and communicate easily with a dashboard for the hotel management to track and manage orders.

STAAR

2019 ACCELERATOR

STAAR (Service Type Autonomous AI based Robotic platform) aims to build customizable service bots for various services like housekeeping, greeting guests, delivering food and baggage etc. They hope to expand to serve a variety of industries.

Anything Delivered

2018 ACCELERATOR

Making home services simple for Sri Lankans by leveraging on mobile technology – Anything Delivered.

Adora.lk

2018 ACCELERATOR

Facilitates users to order bespoke apparels online, design it themselves and see how it fits using virtual reality.

Bring me

2019 ACCELERATOR

BringMe is a virtual grocery shopping experience in Sri Lanka with home delivery. We guarantee the best quality at the lowest price. More importantly we save your free time plus deliver your grocery requirements to your doorstep without any delivery fee. We ensure money back guarantee to all our customers as you are more important to us.

Planmash

2019 ACCELERATOR

PlanMash is the world’s 1st smart wedding planning app to provide the most suitable wedding image board and plan using machine learning together with the most suitable wedding vendors after analyzing the preferences of couples.

EzShip

2021/2022 ACCELERATOR WINNER

They provide a platform for shipping which helps to seamlessly integrate e-commerce vendors with courier companies. The platform helps reduce courier costs and time spent for customer queries for the merchants thus helping them better focus on their core business.

Shopbook

2021/2022 ACCELERATOR WINNER

Shopbook is a trilingual digital ledger book that allows shopkeepers to add customers from their phone’s contact list, record all business transactions, send collection reminders via SMS, maintain cash and suppliers records, and generate business cards.

Kommon Poll

2021/2022 ACCELERATOR WINNER

This product allows the quick identification of keywords in online media by harnessing the power of modern Big Data Workflows. Their easy to use interface and flexible packages provide businesses, organizations and individuals of all scales a portal into the public mind.

Global Tutor

2019 ACCELERATOR

Global Tutor provides high quality education utilizing the resources and technology of today’s context which will enhance students’ knowledge and create a community that utilizes the technology for the development of the economy.

Jendo

2016 ACCELERATOR WINNER

Jendo were the very first champions of our Accelerator and they are a preventive healthcare solution, developed with the focus of eradicating this problem for the middle-aged population. It is a highly scalable non-invasive system that can identify abnormalities in the cardiovascular system and predict the risk of disease. Their proprietary algorithm set analyzes and provides the best lifestyle advice to keep you safe.

MyTution.lk

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

A simple, efficient and interactive learning platform, for anyone to learn anything, at any time!

DirectPay

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

An electronic payment option that provides a viable alternative to cash, POS and MPOS systems while providing convenience to the end customer.

SenzAgro

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

First sensor-based precision agriculture solution in Sri Lanka – Technology to feed the world.

iloan

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

A borrower driven online loan aggregator/powering engine, with the objective of bringing a wide variety of lenders to borrowers – Access to finance at your fingertips.

Helios

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

Revolutionizing peer-to-peer lending by leveraging blockchain technology.

Greasmonkey.lk

2017/2018 ACCELERATOR WINNER

An e-commerce platform that is dedicated for automotive products and services.

Builderbuy.lk

2019 ACCELERATOR WINNER

Sri Lanka’s first online marketplace for the engineering industry connecting material suppliers & contractors.

Vship

2019 ACCELERATOR WINNER

vSHIP is a platform that allows Transport Requesters (Clients) & Transport Service Providers (Transporters) to share assets through aggregation. By doing this, they aim to help increase efficiency, optimize utilization and bring down the cost of transporting products.

Urban.lk

2019 ACCELERATOR WINNER

This online shopping platform that sells premium products boast a wide array of categories such as; electronics and gadgets, home audio equipment, perfumes, smartphones, books and even fashion.

Blue Lotus 360

2019 ACCELERATOR WINNER

They are a highly configurable SaaS cloud ERP solution for projects, jobs, batch based industries in construction, manufacturing, trading and even the service industry. Their application is built to make it easy to do business across multiple verticals and locations by consolidating and standardizing processes, providing visibility across the organization, and to help simplify compliance in many areas of business such as; accounting and finance, human resources, inventory management, procurement, project management,quantity surveying etc.

Viduhala.lk

2019 ACCELERATOR WINNER

This activity based eLearning platform for grade 5 students was designed to address the limitation of traditional classroom education and adopt latest developments of eLearning concepts such as gamification and micro-Learning.

Elysian Field

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Elysian Field is a platform engineered to support digital immortality by creating a digital Elysium or a final resting place for the souls of the digital age. Through this Elysium, our loved ones will be remembered forever and their stories will be uploaded to the cloud for eternity.

Marx

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR FINALIST

Marx aims to improve the age-old relationship between man and money by supplying the software, hardware, services and expertise that enable better connections between vendors and customers. This technology allows users the power of Total Money Management with just one app and for merchants the all-in-one payments and loyalty platform to truly help them grow their business.

Humanised

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR FINALIST

Humanised is a tech startup passionate about helping payroll service companies grow their payroll business by capitalizing on the largely untapped payroll market locally. It relies on an approach of optimizing payroll service systems/processes through automation plus targeted payroll service marketing.

Exploloader

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

A SaaS provider for export companies, they help optimize shipping loads along with the order quantity that fits in a shipping container.

Inhalo

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Inhalo is the world’s first earbud that detects the breathing pattern of a person. This is an international patent pending product that provides Asthma patients with a gamified platform to conduct breathing exercises and to use inhalers properly.

Thrivery

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Thrivery is a wellness platform and a community that provides access to on-demand and live coaches, coaching programs, events and challenges. Their aim is to offer a comprehensive solution to fitness, wellness, and mental wellbeing.

Ace Academy

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Ace Academy is an all-in-one educational platform connecting tutors and students in a seamless way. Their vision is to make tutors maximize their revenue without the hassle of marketing while making it easy for students to find the perfect tutor for them.

ManKiwwa

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

ManKiwwa offers a fully integrated solution that can enhance the public’s well being by easily reporting an adverse incident along with the location by a single click with the user’s smartphone. The Authorities get instant notification of the incident with a picture and location.

InTuitionX

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

An e-learning platform that provides live online tuition classes and online courses for students from school to universities from the best teachers in the country while overcoming key hurdles in online learning.

Trakee

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

Trakee helps businesses digitize their customer interactions by generating unique links that the businesses can send to their customers through SMS, Whatsapp, or email. Customers can open this link on their smartphones to check their digital invoices, track order status, give feedback, and share documents. Trakee can be integrated with any OMS or POS system.

AnybanQ.lk

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR FINALIST

AnybanQ.lk is a one-stop shop featuring banking products such as cards, loans, investments, banking apps, exchange rates and special offers. They are on a mission to increase financial literacy and inclusion in Sri Lanka by bridging the gap between all banks and the general public with free access. Our fellow Sri Lankans and expats would benefit from having banking information at their fingertips, being able to apply online, and earning reward coins every time they visit AnybanQ.lk.

CrowdLearn

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

CrowdLearn is an integrated digital hybrid learning management platform that handles pure online, blended or hybrid delivery modes. They are one of the first education platforms to connect Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as a virtual assistant, which enables students to ask questions via the system.

HireTrace

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

HireTrace is the flagship product of Electrobeam that is a new applicant tracking system to help companies during their recruitment process. The product is unique because of the ‘pay as you go’ pricing model and the level of task automation they provide to recruiters.

Sixer Video

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

They are a video interviewing platform that delivers efficient and affordable video interviewing solutions for employers. With remote work becoming more popular, SIXER has a great platform to accommodate remote working needs and are constantly implementing new features to provide a total hiring solution for companies.

Qfinity

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

The Qfinity platform includes a web and mobile application where teachers are able to conduct their paper classes online all over the country while also being able to sell teacher generated content such as exam paper discussions through the Qfinity Marketplace. Students are able to do past papers, model papers and quizzes for all subjects relating to A/Levels and O/Levels.

KRUSHI

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR

The company uses AI driven by natural language processing, image processing and deep learning techniques to develop their innovative product Krushi – which helps identify the threat of Red Palm Weevil that attack coconut and palm trees. This threat was previously unmitigated by farmers.

KBOOKS

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR FINALIST

KBOOKS is the leading online book delivery platform in Sri Lanka for Sinhala, Tamil and English titles and is soon to expand into digital publishing consisting of e-books, audio books and even e-newspapers. They currently also deliver printed books and stationery products around the globe.

Thyaga

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR FINALIST

Thyaga is a smart e-gift voucher platform that provides a convenient gifting and gift voucher management experience to the consumers, by allowing them to spend Thyaga gift vouchers across multiple stores with partial redemption ability.

RouteSonar

2021/2022 PRE-ACCELERATOR FINALIST

RouteSonar is a smart enabler for logistics that is capable of choosing the most efficient route for a multi location problem based on multiple parameters including vehicle capacity and availability. The solution enables the user to cut down on fuel wastage, idle time on the road and even reduce the overall carbon footprint of their fleets.

Aabith Sabeer - Founder, Shopbook.lk

“The JKX Accelerator program is an amazing opportunity for a start-up to grow and get access to resources that are focused on optimizing exposure. The training programs and mentors at JKX played a great role in helping us achieve the next step. We would recommend that start-ups go through this programe, as it’ll push you to build structure and connect you with prominent figures in the market.”

Ushan Chaminda - Co-Founder, Gavesha Labs

“We are really lucky to be a part of the John Keells X Pre-Accelerator program this year. We learned a lot from industrial leaders in John Keells Group and it was really valuable because we were able to learn from their experiences which was awesome! I’m also very thankful for the knowledge the program provided which was a great help on our startup journey.”

Nikin Matharaarachchi - Founder, Kommon Poll

“I must say the past few months working with JKX has been quite great! From the workshops conducted by Marius to the meetups that were held, and the general support provided by the whole JKX team! I definitely recommend that all startups apply for JKX in the next batch to get your startup up and running and to get untiring help and support as well.”

Shenuka Umangiliya - Founder, Balamu

“The JKX program has been brilliant. The webinar session by Marius taught me so much about entrepreneurship, how to build a great product and how to take that to market. I really enjoyed the meetup sessions held as well. They not only gave great insight into aspects like finance, marketing, legal and share structures but also provided a lovely opportunity for all the participants to chat and share learning’s.”

Nipuna Abeykoon - Co-Founder, Krushi

“Being a part of JKX opened our minds and gave us a lot of information and insights as well as direction. It has been one of the most influential pre-accelerators we have been a part of. The access to the panel of mentors at international and industrial levels was really good for us as starting founders to do the product development and go through the process.”

Nissanka Seneviratne - Co-Founder, EzShip

“The past few months of the JKX program have been nothing short of awesome. The program is well structured, organized and often meets the standards of the top startup accelerators of the world. The JKX team’s constant monitoring & feedback through monthly checkpoints has also helped to push us to reach our goals”

Hithesh Fernando - Co-Founder, Anybanq.lk

“The JKX Program has been pretty close to us as we have been following them since 2017 and this year, we are a part of it. We had many workshops and meetups where we gained knowledge and experience from the senior leaders in the John Keells Group.”

Gavesha Labs

2021/2022 ACCELERATOR WINNER

Gavesha Labs designs awesome STEM learning experiences and tool kits for curious young explorers to engage with science and technology from the convenience of their own homes.

Rhoda

2021/2022 ACCELERATOR WINNER

RHODA is a mobility startup that designs and builds light electric vehicles that do not require licenses or registrations to be used for short trips within a city or town.

Balamu

2021/2022 ACCELERATOR WINNER

Balamu is Sri Lanka’s first travel audio guide, packed with interesting stories, facts and reliable information about Sri Lanka. With the Balamu App you can explore at your own pace while listening to high quality audio guides, which play automatically as you wander around the sites.

Nithushan Udayakumar - Co-Founder/COO, Blue Lotus 360

“The initial seed investment gave us some breathing space to recalibrate our self-focus on our weaknesses and raising investments with the guidance of JKH support provided us with immense validation in the market. The mentoring we received from JKH executives additionally provided us with much needed insight on how to market ERP locally and internationally and they were also helpful in providing us with connections to make some of our local and foreign sales.”

Nuzhi Meyen - Founder/CEO, HeliosP2P

Upon our entry into the JKX accelerator, we managed to gain access to resources such as customers and expertise from the John Keells Group. The Growth & Execution workshop by JKX proved rather helpful in customer acquisitions. Furthermore, the continuous support that JKX gave us through the years proved invaluable in launching and expanding Helios P2P. Finally, the seed funding provided by JKX helped us to launch our startup and achieve various accolades throughout the last 2 to 3 years as well as being fortunate enough to receive follow-up seed funding as well.

Miller Alexander, Founder - SenxAgro

“JKX is one of the best corporate accelerators for a Sri Lankan startup who wants to grow fast. The program provides support to overcome the many barriers an early-stage startup could face such as finding early adopters, dealing with clients in a formal way and specially to open up doors for that crucial first meeting! The John Keells name, brand and accessibility allows any startup to have a strong footprint in the market. Highly recommended to give it a shot!”

Kanishka Weeramunda - Founder/Director, DirectPay

“The JKX Accelerator Program provided us with the opportunity to be surrounded by other ambitious and inspiring entrepreneurs. DirectPay benefited from what is an atmospheric and energetic space along with collaboration and dedicated support from the JKH internal and external networks which was a essential in helping us take big steps forward to make the business more realistic and viable in the long term. This is certainly a program for serious entrepreneurs interested in learning how to grow successful businesses!”

Kalana Muthumuni, Co-Founder of Urban.lk

“We were put through a mentorship program that helped us with our MVP’s and they pushed us to create structure in our company by connecting us with their finance and legal teams. Through the program we were also able to connect with prominent figures in the startup community and all this helped us increase credibility and gain a foothold in the market.”

Prasad Dissanayake, Founder of Viduhala.lk

“JKX has given us access to much more than just funding, we have been able to leverage our business with more exposure and expert support from their corporate and partner networks”

Lakshan De Silva, Co-Founder of iLoan

“There is immense credibility that a business can get when a conglomerate like JKH is backing your business and helping you along the way and we are truly satisfied, happy and grateful for the opportunities presented to our Company by the Accelerator program!”

Channa Gunawardena, Co-Founder and CTO of vSHIP

“We were not only encouraged and motivated when we were selected for investment by JKX but obtained valuable advice and knowhow from the training programs and mentors who used their own lived-in experience to coach us on how to make difficult but critical decisions for the betterment of our company.”

Marius Ursache

Marius Ursache is a teacher and mentor at MIT and Singularity University, an experienced entrepreneur, awarded designer, brand consultant and a TechStars entrepreneur in residence. He participated in creating the Disciplined Entrepreneurship book and has developed DE Toolbox; the free tool for disciplined entrepreneurs, which is now used by over 1,000 startups around the world. He is also a mentor for accelerators such as Boomtown Boulder (United States), MVP Academy (Romania) and Eleven (Bulgaria). Marius is also the founder & CEO of Eternime; an artificial intelligence startup incubated in the MIT Entrepreneurship Development Program. As a multidisciplinary person (entrepreneurship, product development, UX/UI design, branding, information architecture and usability), Marius loves tackling tough problems and projects when he’s not traveling to remote tribal areas.

Vlad Bodi

Vlad Bodi is an alumnus of the MIT Entrepreneurship program in Romania, an entrepreneur and a marketing consultant. He has founded two software development companies, one which was focused on financial software and markets. Since 2012, Vlad has been developing growth teams for Latin American startups that are expanding in the region and worldwide. Vlad is a mentor for accelerators such as Boomtown Boulder (United States) and 3IE (Chile). He is also the founder of Hppy; a company culture and engagement blog that is recognized and read by HR C-level executives worldwide.

NicNac

NicNac showed off their product which was an on-demand e-butler. Their service allowed users to request anything they want from the app and have it delivered to them through a network of bike delivery people. What NicNac was doing was completely automating the order process using an ‘AI’ that made the service faster and much more scalable. The interface would make it quicker and easier to make orders as well.

Grubz

Team Grubz was working on the pressing issue of finding a place to eat. Their app uses a smartphone’s GPS to find restaurants around the user that are offering special deals. When the user visits the restaurant, they can show the app to redeem the deal. Restaurant owners can use the platform to create limited time real-time offers that can help them fill tables on slow days.

Synergen

Synergen had developed a smart ring that uses gestures to control computers and smartphones through bluetooth. Perhaps the most interesting part of the demonstration was realizing that the presenter was controlling the powerpoint presentation using simple gestures of her hands. The team also showed how they responded to an incoming phone call by text message simply with one gesture of their hand.

Onsbay

Team Onsbay was dealing with the challenge of finding skilled service professionals for home repair. They developed a platform where service agents list themselves and where homeowners can search for and book someone who would then perform the service. There was also an option for a subscription service for businesses to book a service.

Markify

Markify is a speech-driven, SaaS analytics and data searching service. A manager, for example, can use natural language voice commands to draw up a series of graphs and analytics using the parameters stated in the command. As part of the demo, the platform was used to trawl through product data on Amazon to find out gaps in inventory (a missing colour or size) that would increase sales.

Acrux

Acrux was building a service called Travel Sphere which is a desktop and mobile app that would allow travellers to experience a location in virtual reality before they decide to visit it. They were planning to crowdsource the content, having contributors send in panoramic pictures of the location. Advertisers will pay to have their own content on the platform which users access for free.

BotFactory

BotFactory was using their AI bots to automatically reply to routine emails without the user ever having to intervene. The bot uses deep learning to study the incoming emails, label them and then reply with relevant information that exists within the inbox already. If the bot does not have enough data then it won’t reply and instead saves the message as a draft.

Inzurely

Inzurely was developing an online insurance agent agregator. They said that there were over 4.5 million insurance covers in the country and that customers were often unsure if they were getting the best deals. Insurance agents would submit quotes to the platform and customers can use the platform to compare different insurance quotes to select the best one. The platform then connects the customer to the agent directly, where the deal can be completed.

Jendo

Team Jendo started off the proceedings with their product. Jendo was working on a platform to predict cardiovascular health through noninvasive means. They demoed a pulse oximetric probe (basically a clip that attaches to your finger) through which they collected signals from the pulse (pulse plethysmography), sent it to their platform and used it to make inferences on the subject’s health. The team stated that people largely preferred cheap and noninvasive methods to do health checkups. These devices would be sold to clinics and cheaper version to individuals. Patients could get their checkups done at any clinic because their profiles and data were available in the cloud.

Niduksha Widisinghe - Founder/CEO, Greasemonkey

“John Keells Accelerator program has given us continuous support to grow our business. We also have access to industry experts who are also our mentors to get their valuable opinion on how best we could achieve our KPIs. We have been able to expand our business within a very short period of time!”

Miller Alexander - Founder/CEO, SenzAgro

“JKX is one of the best corporate accelerators for a Sri Lankan startup who wants to grow fast. The program provides support to overcome the many barriers an early stage startup could face such as finding that early adopter, dealing with clients in a formal way and especially to open up doors for that crucial first meeting! The John Keells name, brand, and accessibility allows any startup to have a strong footprint in the market. Highly recommended to give a shot.”

Nuzhi Meyen - Founder/CEO, HeliosP2P

“We were fortunate enough to be selected for the John Keells X Accelerator as an idea stage startup and 6 months later we found ourselves growing fast with paying customers! We have been provided with access to mentors with industry knowledge as well as access to the finance and secretarial services at John Keells Holdings and most of all the office space based out of Crescat Boulevard. Much thanks to Wishanth and his team from JKX for supporting us on our journey “

Chairman, JKH

Krishan Balendra was appointed as an Executive Director of JKH in November 2016 and was appointed as Deputy Chairman of JKH on January 1st 2018. He is also the Chairman of Nations Trust Bank PLC. He was previously the President of the Leisure and Retail Sectors at JKH. Mr. Balendra joined JKH in 2002 as Head of Corporate Finance after stints at UBS Warburg, Hong Kong in Investment Banking and Aitken Spence Sri Lanka in Corporate Finance. Mr. Balendra, a former Chairman of the Colombo Stock Exchange, holds a law degree (LLB) from the University of London and an MBA from INSEAD. He is also the Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Sri Lanka in addition to being a Member of the Main Committee of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

Chairman, Asia Securities Holdings

“Dumith is Chairman of Asia Securities Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, a leading independent Investment Bank in Sri Lanka which offers Investment Banking, Research, Stock Broking and Wealth Management services to international and domestic institutions, corporates and high net worth individuals. Dumith has two decades of experience in international Investment Banking based in New York and Hong Kong with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (from 1995 until 2007) and Credit Suisse AG (from 2007 until 2013). Until 2013, he was Managing Director and Group Chief Operating Officer for Credit Suisse Asia Pacific. He has worked in roles across Investment Banking, Equities, Venture Capital and Corporate Strategy. Dumith is a Non-Executive Director of the Colombo Stock Exchange, Union Assurance PLC, and Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC and a member of the Economic Policy Steering Committee of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. He also served as Chairman of Lankan Angel Network (LAN) Sri Lanka’s main angel investor organization. He holds a BA in Physics & Economics from Middlebury College in the U.S. and an MBA from Harvard Business School. “

Founder and CEO, Bluestone Capital

Ajit Gunewardene is the Founder & CEO of Bluestone Capital Private Limited. He was the Deputy Chairman of John Keells Holdings PLC and has been a member of the Board for over 24 years. In addition to this he was the Chairman of Union Assurance PLC a leading life insurance provider in Sri Lanka. He is the Founder Chairman of Digital Mobility Solutions (PVT) Limited (Pick Me) – the leading ride hailing service provider in the Country. He is a member of the Board of SLINTEC, a company established for the development of nanotechnology in Sri Lanka under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology. He has also served as the Chairman of the Colombo Stock Exchange and Nations Trust Bank PLC. Ajit has a degree in Economics and brings over 36 years of management experience.

Group CIO, JKH

Ramesh presently leads the Digital and Technology strategy/execution for the John Keells Group, Sri Lanka’s largest listed conglomerate in the Colombo Stock Exchange, as its Executive Vice President/ Group CIO whilst providing leadership for the Group’s IT Consultancy and Services’ Organization, John Keells IT as its CEO. He is a seasoned Digital cum Business Executive, Leader and Strategist, who has provided effective stewardship for many organizations, including premier, blue-chip, conglomerates, working in some of the most competitive markets in the technology industry. He has over 25 years of experience, with 15+ at the C-level, in Sri Lanka, USA and India with an operational footprint covering territories such as USA, Canada, UK, Nordics, Middle East, Australia and emerging markets. He holds to his credit a PhD (Management) from Keisei University, South Korea, MSc(Computer Science) with Phi Kappa Phi Honours from Rochester Institute of Technology, a MBA(General) from Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka; BSc.Eng.(Electronics & Telecommunications) with First class Honours from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Deputy Chairman and Group Finance Director, JKH

Gihan Cooray was appointed as an Executive Director of JKH in November 2016 and was appointed as Group Finance Director of JKH on January 1st 2018. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Nations Trust Bank PLC. Mr. Cooray holds an MBA from the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University, Houston, Texas. He is an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK, a Certified Management Accountant of the Institute of Certified Management Accountants, Australia and has a Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK. He serves as a Member of the Sub-Committee on Economic, Fiscal and Policy Planning of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

Markify

2016 Winner

Markify is a speech-driven, SaaS analytics and data searching service. A manager, for example, can use natural language voice commands to draw up a series of graphs and analytics using the parameters stated in the command. As part of the demo, the platform was used to trawl through product data on Amazon to find out gaps in inventory (a missing colour or size) that would increase sales..

Quick Access

Portfolio

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WINNERS

PRE-ACCELERATOR PARTICIPANTS

2015/16 Participants

Jendo

Inzurely

BotFactory

Acrux

Kart

Onsbay

Markify

Synergen

Grubz

NicNac