Meet the founder who built and sold a $600M enterprise software startup from Sri Lanka

Quick Summary:

Sanjiva Weerawarana co-founded WSO2 in 2005, recently selling it for more than $600M.

Today, 80% of WSO2’s 780 employees are in Sri Lanka, with the remainder spread across a smattering of hubs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.“I wanted to show we could build a product-oriented tech company from Sri Lanka,” Weerawarana continued.“There had never been a company like this, and at that time there wasn’t even a company out of India like this.

Notably, WSO2’s center of gravity has remained in Sri Lanka, despite a longstanding civil war and external pressure to relocate to the U.S.where Weerawarana had lived previously for 16 years.“I came back [to Sri Lanka] in 2001, and two weeks before I landed in Colombo, the airport was attacked by a terrorist group — there were still pieces of planes on the ground,” he said.“In 2005, the war was still going on.

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Article Details

Author / Journalist: Paul Sawers

Category: StartupsBusiness

Markets: United StatesChinaIndiaSri Lanka

Topics: Sanjiva Weerawarana Eqt Enterprise WSO2 Startups Sri lanka

Source Website Secure: Yes (HTTPS)

News Sentiment: Negative

Fact Checked: Legitimate

Article Type: News Report

Published On: 2024-08-03 @ 16:00:00 (14 hours ago)

News Timezone: GMT -5:00

News Source URL: techcrunch.com

Language: English

Article Length: 2818 words

Reading Time: 16 minutes read

Sentences: 89 lines

Sentence Length: 32 words per sentence (average)

Platforms: Desktop Web, Mobile Web, iOS App, Android App

Copyright Owner: © TechCrunch

News ID: 21907387

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