13 July 2016 10:11 am
Blue Ocean Venture (BOV) Capital yesterday announced Rs.2 billion fund focused on Sri Lankan technology startups. According to BOV, this would be the first venture capital fund focused on early stage startups in the country. BOV Capital is a partnership between local investors and entrepreneurs,
Prajeeth Balasubramniam, Eric Wikramanayake and Rajan Anandan. BOV Capital’s target ticket size will be in the range of Rs.100-200 million. In its first close, the fund has achieved Rs.600 million. BOV said the fund would focus on investing and working closely with Sri Lankan technology startups that can build large regional and global businesses.
The Rs.2 billion fund is from high net-worth limited partners in India and Singapore, in addition to the Founding Partners. BOV Capital is also supported by Ambit Finvest, one of the leading investment banks in India. The fund expects to invest in startups that have strong teams, have proven product market fit, demonstrated some ability to expand outside Sri Lanka and the potential to build large regional or global businesses.
“Over the past 5 years, we have seen the emergence of an exciting startup ecosystem in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s strong educational system has led to the country producing world-class engineers. These skills in computer science and engineering, combined with the global exposure that many of our entrepreneurs have, is leading to the creation of very interesting software product companies and internet companies that have tremendous regional and global potential. BOV Capital intends to invest in the highest potential technology startups from Sri Lanka and help them expand rapidly,” said Prajeeth Balasubramaniam.