Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Meet the Up-and-Coming Entrepreneurs of the Founder Institute Sri Lanka

By Arteculate Jun 29, 2021 #Founder Institute

Founder Institute is the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, having helped launch over 4,500 companies across 200+ cities and six continents. Alumni of the Founder Institute have raised nearly $1 billion in funding, and are building some of the world’s fastest-growing technology and high impact businesses. 

Last year, Founder Institute entered Sri Lanka and successfully completed its first cohort and graduated eight promising companies in the country. As the next Sri Lanka cohort gets ready to start, join us for a Zoom Meeting with the FI Sri Lanka alumni & FI Sri Lanka team. Learn the tips and tricks to building a startup in Sri Lanka, and ask the alumni about their experience in the FI Sri Lanka program. 

“Meet the Alumni of the Founder Institute Sri Lanka” will be held on June 29, 2021, from 06:00 pm – 07:30 pm. The event will feature insights from Sharmilan Somasundaram (Co-Founder & CEO, Niftron), Niki Gomez (Founder & CEO, Maximise Me) and Thariq Hamad (Co-Founder & CEO, FieldR). The Founder Institute Sri Lanka team will also be present to answer your questions. Since joining the Founder Institute program, its alumni have raised funds, won awards and represented Sri Lanka.

Sharmilan Somasundaram is the Co-Founder & CEO of Niftron, a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform. He joined the FI Colombo Virtual 2020 program with a prototype and graduated in December. Niftron was selected for Cohort 1 of the Lankan Angel Network in Dec 2020 and successfully raised LKR 21 million in funding from Angel Investors in April 2021. During 2021, Niftron received the award for Best Newcomer at the Global Startup Awards for the SAARC Region and two E-Swabhimani awards for digital social impact from the Sri Lankan government’s Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA). Niftron was also selected for the X-Hub Tokyo global startup accelerator program in Jan 2021. 

Niki Gomez is the Founder/CEO of Maximise Me. Niki has 20 years of experience in digital marketing, branding and managing innovation including an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Maximise Me enables you to maximize your chances of getting pregnant and carrying the baby to term. Be coached to conceive with a doctor through easy to do lifestyle changes. Niki enrolled in the FI Colombo Virtual 2020 Program with an idea and graduated in December 2020. Maximise Me was selected for Cohort 2 of the Lankan Angel Network in May 2021. 

Thariq Hamad is the Co-Founder & CEO of FieldR. Thariq is a sports data enthusiast working to build tech solutions to enhance the performance of cricket players from the grassroots level. FieldR gathers fielding related sports data of cricket players and provides coaches/players with analytical graphs and suggestions to make better decisions on and off the field. Thariq had

considered giving up on his startup before joining the FI Colombo Virtual 2020 program. After graduating from the FI program in December 2020, FieldR was selected to receive a government grant of LKR 1.5 million from ICTA’s Spiralation program in June 2021. 

The Silicon Valley-based program all of these founders followed is now available to all high-potential founders in Sri Lanka. The upcoming Founder Institute Sri Lanka Virtual 2021 program is now accepting applications. This Founder Institute cohort will be held completely online, allowing anyone across the island to build a business alongside some of Sri Lanka’s top entrepreneurs and investors. It is an intensive program that is open to anybody ranging from individuals interested in doing a startup to founders that have already built a prototype (provided they have not raised over USD $500,000 in funding). Anybody who is interested can apply to the Sri Lanka Virtual 2021 Founder Institute at http://fi.co/apply/srilanka. Register for “Meet the Alumni of the Founder Institute Sri Lanka” to be held on June 29, 2021, from 06:00 PM – 07:30 PM by visiting https://fi.co/e/240869.

By Arteculate

Arteculate is your guide to the Asian tech industry. We give you unparalleled insights, accurate, local tech news, thoughtful features and sometimes scathing opinions on where things are headed. Stay tuned for the best of Asia!

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