Manasij Ganguli's Intellocut wins Venturengine 2014

Start-up funding competition Venturengine wrapped up its third edition on July 3 at the Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo, with intelligent material planning and optimisation software company Intellocut, founded by Manasij Ganguli, taking the top prize. Rounding out the top three was restaurant management IT solution OMAK, by Ehantha Sirisena, and telco software solutions provided Extrogene, by Ruwan Dissanayaka and Thushara Rankothge.

Further, according to a winners announcement, the "entrepreneurs behind the top 14 fundable businesses made their final presentations to the panel of judges comprising members of the Lankan Angel Network (LAN) and Indian Angel Network (IAN), from which three winning business plans were selected".

Prajeeth Balasubramanium, Co-Founder of Blue Ocean Ventures, the organiser of the competition since its inception, said "This year's entrepreneurs have shown incredible so- phistication of thought, bold innovations and perseverance. This is encouraging as it points to greater confidence in the entrepreneurial path and higher levels of exposure to the process, giving budding entrepreneurs firmer conviction in their decisions. We are very excited to witness the positive effects of creating an effective platform for entrepreneurs to excel".

Also commenting, Jeremy Huxtable, Group Chief Officer at Dialog Enterprise, noted, "(venture cap- ital) plays a critical role in providing the investment and resources needed for innovative enterprises to realise their full potential not only locally, but n the global stage as well".

Additionally, the winners' announcement also stated that this year's competition was "well-attended by Colombo's business community", and that "Venturengine will be back in 2015 and all signs point towards an even bigger response from budding entrepreneurs".

(JH)