Lanka Ventures

Riyaz Sangani serves as Managing Director and leads investment decisions. He founded the firm in 2011 and operates as the primary decision-maker for capital deployment and portfolio management. As is common with frontier-market firms of this scale, the investment process is centralized under the founder.

The firm sources primarily through founder networks, ecosystem relationships in Colombo, and referrals from the Sri Lankan technology diaspora. Given the small size of the domestic venture market, most opportunities are proprietary or first-institutional-capital situations. Lanka Ventures typically encounters companies before regional or global venture funds begin coverage of Sri Lanka.

Lanka Ventures operates as a private equity and venture capital manager. It is not publicly known to manage a single-family balance sheet. The firm deploys pooled capital into portfolio companies, though the composition of its limited partner base is not publicly disclosed.

The firm focuses on venture and growth-stage equity, typically post-revenue companies that have demonstrated product-market fit in Sri Lanka or adjacent South Asian markets. Lanka Ventures does not publicly indicate participation in seed-stage or idea-stage investing.

The 2022 sovereign default and subsequent currency depreciation created a distressed operating environment for all domestically exposed Sri Lankan funds. For Lanka Ventures, the crisis compressed local valuations and increased the emphasis on portfolio companies with export revenue and foreign-currency earnings. The period has also reduced the number of active local peers, potentially improving sourcing dynamics for surviving managers.