Hatch to venture into Pakistan
View(s):Hatch, will be opening its first ever overseas branch in Lahore, Pakistan by April. Jeevan Gnanam, speaking to the Business Times on the sidelines of the official launch for Council for Start-ups at Hatch Works in Colombo on Tuesday, said that with their partner in Lahore, Hatch will take its products to Pakistan and vice versa. “We aim to add value to Pakistan‘s start-up ecosystem.” Eventually, Hatch will expand into the region, Mr. Gnanam added.
Meanwhile in Colombo, at least two start-ups will be going public on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) Empower Board (the secondary board). Zigzag, an online fashion marketplace is one.
Industry officials told the Business Times that a bunch of start-ups are having earnest discussions with the CSE to go public on the secondary board.
Prajeeth Balasubramaniam Founder, Lankan Angel Network and Managing Partner of start-up fund, Bo Capital who is also the chairman of the Council, noted that channelling some of the stock market money through the banking sector or other sources into start-ups will fuel them in these stressful times.
“The CSE is regulated and the private sector is not going to put money into start-ups. If the government regulates start-up projects and their funding structures then banks and private investors will feel that the risks are minimised and then they will join in to reap the rewards by investing in them.”
Mr. Balasubramaniam said that Sri Lanka’s ICT exports have risen to US$1.2 billion in 2020 from $847 million in 2015.
The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce last September established the CCC Council for Start-ups under its National Agenda Committee on Entrepreneurship Ecosystem to address current impediments and challenges and foster a thriving ecosystem of entrepreneurship, which facilitates economic growth and empowerment of start-ups and SMEs in Sri Lanka. Mr. Balasubramaniam added that here, the start-up eco system has evolved in the past 10 years with funding, enablers, industry, investors and events. “We have seen lot of activity at the beginning phase of a start-up starting from idea to seed capital to early stage but there is unmet need for support in start-ups’ stages from ‘later, growth and mature’.”
Mr. Balasubramaniam said that about 50 start-up ventures shut down for good out of the 400 new start-ups in the country owing to COVID-19. “Many were pushed to shut down and a lot of them are struggling right now. The beauty of local start-ups is that they become profitable within a short period, but with Sri Lanka being a small country there is the scalability issue, unlike in India.” If this year too will be as bad as seen last year, the local start-up community will see more ventures shutting down, he said. (DEC)