Hatch, the centre of gravity for all things startup in Sri Lanka has scored another first, welcoming on board Mountain Lion Ventures – a Sri Lanka Focused build up & scale up investment vehicle, as an investor into the Hatch Fund to provide startups with seed funding and bridge capital. This is a real testament to the visibility Hatch has into the local startup ecosystem and their ability to identify globally scalable startups through the multitude of incubator and accelerator programs they run.
As an established ecosystem enabler, Hatch identified funding and market access as the most common barriers for local entrepreneurs, particularly female entrepreneurs looking to ideate, prototype and scale their startups. Mountain Lion ventures, a globally established venture capital firm investing into the Hatch fund helps to overcome both barriers faced by Sri Lankan startups.
The Hatch fund constitutes an ESG fund – HERCapital and MoonShot ventures. The former being Sri Lanka’s first Gender Smart Venture Capital fund and the latter, being a tech fund to encourage disruptive innovations in products, technology and business models.
Under the leadership of Chairman, Advisory Board – Dr Cornelius Boersch, General Partner – Asad Sultan, General Partner – Love Yadav and Venture Partner – Jorge Perez Garcia, Mountain Lion Ventures has successfully launched locally developed tech ventures geared for a modern market across digital transformation and clean tech space
Mountain Lion Group has been responsible for scaling and empowering Sri Lanka’s Start-Up market aiding in the growth of businesses such as Sling Mobility (a 360° electric mobility platform providing retail logistics solution), LIWE Communities (Sri Lanka’s first comprehensive cloud-based smart communities management platform), Infragist (a cutting-edge full stack tech services company with capabilities across the Metaverse, Cyber Security, Blockchain, Machine Learning and AI Solutions), and Mercato (a B2B single-platform procurement system).
Speaking with the General Partner, Mountain Lion Group – Love Yadav, stated: “Sri Lanka is at the cusp of the next gen digital revolution, which is expected to result in maximum stakeholder value created by innovations and ideas in this space. Hatch shares a similar vision with Mountain Lion Group and it is further aligned with this round of investment commitment. The scope of this investment has the forecasted potential for future growth.”
Since its inception, Hatch has placed a strong emphasis on running Incubator and Accelerator programs which empower female entrepreneurs and encourage disruptive technological innovations. The Hatch fund is designed to further enhance the support it provides in these key areas. Commenting on this, Brindha Selvadurai Gnanam, Co-founder of Hatch stated; Our team has several years of experience in supporting startups both at ideation and growth stages across multiple industries. This experience and expertise are the reason we are what we are today. I am confident that this investment into the Hatch fund will help us further improve our service offerings to the startup ecosystem and help take these startups to the global arena.
One of Hatch’s core programs is AccelerateHer, where the Hatch team along with subject matter experts travelled across the Island to run immersive 3-day boot camps covering key areas in business and entrepreneurship supporting over 140 female entrepreneurs over the last year. The AccelerateHer program has provided Hatch with a high calibre funnel of female led businesses ready to receive funding to take them to the global stage.
Hatch has also pioneered the facilitation of open innovation in Sri Lanka. Its recent partnership with IFS, a global tech firm to launch Sri Lanka’s first AI-Machine learning Incubator is an example of developing local tech talent by providing them with the opportunity to identify, test, and solve real-world problems.
In addition to its programs, Hatch also facilitates regular Web 3 meetups, with its community generating many firsts in the Web 3 and Artificial Intelligence space showing that the community is focused on solutions for the new economy and building a new way forward – the MoonShot ventures fund will further facilitate the development of disruptive technologies applicable to the global economy.
Hatch offers a unique support platform that enables entrepreneurs to achieve their vision and grow their businesses. With over 800 members, the Hatch ecosystem comprises over 100 startups, 60,000 sq. ft of space, over 60 mentors who are experts in their fields, over 100 program graduates, 40+ local and global partnerships, and much more.
Even in uncertain times, Hatch offers hope for budding Sri Lankan Entrepreneurs to not just excel within the country but internationally as well.
Sri Lanka is a multi-faceted country with a world class human resource pool. Despite the hardships, the startup community of Sri Lanka has made giant strides, it is a true story of grit, and perseverance which is changing Sri Lanka from a troubled nation to a startup nation.