Sri Lanka’s Startup Ecosystem through the lense of Startup Genome’s Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2021

The global innovation policy advisory & research firm Startup Genome launched the 2021 edition of the Global Startup Ecosystem report (GSER), in which Sri Lanka’s Startup Ecosystem was featured along with key insights and its way forward after working closely with the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka as a country validating study. Published annually, the report analyses 280 entrepreneurial innovation ecosystems and 3 million startups and includes the ranking of the leading 140 ecosystems in the world, breakdowns by continent with regional insights.

The report highlights that Sri Lanka is ranked second in the region for ease of starting a startup business, given the recent developments and new laws designated for Colombo Port City as a Special Economic Zone and government’s nod to establish five new technology parks around the island and international collaborations for startup funding. The rapid growth of the ecosystem is backed by the government incentives and timely measures to strengthen the ecosystem.

“Sri Lanka is implementing a holistic and reliant approach to developing our startup ecosystem. Provision of infrastructure through state- of-the-art technology parks, startup-friendly laws and policies, creation of a venture fund, entrepreneur visa, facilitating regional startup hubs are a few of many initiatives that will be implemented in our start-up development strategy.’’ said Jayantha De Silva, Secretary, Ministry of Technology.

“As per the GSER findings, the overall growth and performance in Sri Lanka’s startup ecosystem has been impacted by the pandemic.

However, as the facilitator for technology startup development in Sri Lanka, ICTA will continue to work closely with Startup Genome alongside a strong collaboration between both local and global organisations to further empower and accelerate the startup ecosystem in the country” said Oshada Senanayake, Chairman of ICTA.

ICTA is actively working with the Startup Genome, government bodies and partner organisations to achieve its vision of establishing 1,000 tech startups by 2024.