If you’re an active follower of Sri Lankan startups, then the name SPIKE should be quite familiar to you. But for those of you who don’t know about it, SPIKE is a regular meetup that brings together founders, technologies, investors, and anyone else curious about what this whole startup thing is about. First held in 2014, it’s been a regular tradition of the local startup ecosystem ever since happening at the Barefoot Cafe.
Over the years, we’ve regularly attended many of the SPIKE meetups. It has hosted many famous speakers, some of whom are giants in the tech industry like Tony Weerasinghe – founder of Millennium IT, who came to SPIKE to share his latest venture. During our visits, the common theme was that we always had something insightful to take back. In 2019, we’ve had 4 editions of SPIKE.
At the very first edition of the year, we saw how a Venture Capital firm like BOV Capital and a corporate accelerator like the John Keells X programme support startups to grow. The second edition, which took a break from the usual format, shared the stories of Alakazam and EQ Works in their respective efforts to thrive in international markets beyond Sri Lanka. The third edition saw the founders of Very Bad Wizards take the spotlight and introduce us to the concept of Design Sprints. Finally, the fourth edition, which took place in August, debunked myths around social enterprises and gave us a glimpse of impact investing in Sri Lanka.
Now as the year ends, the final event on the SPIKE calendar is spike.connect. This is the annual SPIKE year-end party, where the organizers invite past speakers, attendees, and others active in the local ecosystem. This is a free event, happening today at RE.PUB.LK from 6 PM onwards. So if you’re an entrepreneur, investor, or just someone plain curious to know more about startups, this is the event for you. As always, we’ll be there if you want an introductory guide to the ecosystem or want to talk about anything else that excites you.