Business
Different Offers Equity to All Colombo-office Staff
Different Technologies, one of Australia’s hottest new global startups, will starting from January 2021, s offer all permanent employees equity in the firm, which is backed by Australia’s largest VC firm AirTree Ventures, and Silicon Valley’s Foundation Capital.
The company said it is “taking this decisive step because it believes that investing in its employees and ensuring their stability and security is not only the right thing to do, but also a smart business decision.”
“Particularly in the uncertain economic climate that has arisen in the aftermath of COVID-19, we want our employees to think like owners,” said Co-founder of :Different, Ruwin Perera, a former Director at Softbank. “We have built our company around people, and we want those people with us for the long run. Offering all our employees equity in our firm is a chance for us to let them grow with us, just like our investors. You can tell a lot about a company by where it focuses its resources and in our case we believe that investing in our employees will pay dividends in the long run. Ultimately, we’re building this company together and rather than simply paying lip service to this idea; we wanted to take action!”
“:Different has always been a great company to work for, but the new equity offer is just amazing,” said Deegha Galkissa, a member of the Engineering team at :Different’s Colombo office. “Feeling that you’re a part of a team is nice but knowing that you’re a part-owner of the company you work for is something else entirely.”
This sentiment was also echoed by Mark Sinnathamby, another member of the Engineering team. “Giving equity to all employees is not something you see every day in Sri Lanka and I’m just proud to be a part of the company that has made it happen. Coming into work definitely feels different, now that I’m a shareholder in my company!”
:Different’s VP of Engineering, Hasitha Liyanage is no stranger to start-ups that eventually became big names in Sri Lanka, like MIT, Sysco Labs. Liyanage spoke more on the rationale behind sharing equity and how it is also a personal decision for him, “I wish someone had offered this to me when I was a Junior Developer! It cannot be overstated, the best way to encourage employees to think and act like owners is to actually make them owners!”
:Different’s Country HR Business Partner, Kalpika Abayasekera explained that all current staff are automatically enrolled in this scheme, with a specific up-front entitlement to the equity on offer, “We felt it was absolutely necessary to reward the team that has been through the growing pains of a start-up. These shares are issued on a four-year maturity which also encourages the team to see their tenure as quite literally a long-term investment.”
“We are following the same format adopted in Silicon Valley and in our Australian office, and thought it was about time that our Sri Lankan crew reap the same benefits as their counterparts abroad,” said Perera
:Different recently reaffirmed its commitment to Sri Lanka by doubling its stake in the country through a multi-million dollar investment in its Colombo office. This move strengthens the regional office by adding senior personnel and moving key operational functions, including real-time customer management, customer experience, maintenance and supplier relationships to Sri Lanka.
“The increased investment into the Colombo office, coupled with our new equity offer to employees underlines :Different’s commitment to harnessing the best minds in Sri Lanka to build a world-class technology company that places Sri Lanka very firmly on the world tech map”, said Perera.
He is confident that this new move will further strengthen :Different’s position as one of the most employee-friendly startups to work for in Sri Lanka. “Recruiting and retaining the very best may be the most important part of building a company that will be resilient through the uncertain times that await us over the next decade, and this is doubly important as world economies recover from COVID-19. Our hope is that this move will encourage other companies to start seeing their employees as long-term investments, because that’s exactly what they are to us!”
The company news release did not reveal whether what’s on offer is free or paid shares under an Employees Share Option Plan (ESOP).
Sri Lanka has launched a National Digital Signing Framework, a foundational initiative paving the way for paperless governance. This strategic move eliminates the need for physical signatures and documents in government transactions, aiming to dramatically enhance efficiency, transparency, and accessibility for citizens and businesses. An analyst said that this could accelerate Sri Lanka’s governance and commercial relationships with other countries as traditional signatures make room for digitally signed documents accepted by the government.
In this significant step toward accelerating Sri Lanka’s digital transformation, eMudhra, a global leader in digital identity and security solutions, has entered into a strategic partnership with LankaSign the only Certification Service Provider (CSP) in the country that complies with the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006, operated by LankaPay, Sri Lanka’s national payment network during recently held inauguration of INFOTEL 2025 ICT exhibition at Sirimavo Bandaranaike Exhibition Hall.
The LankaSign–eMudhra partnership brings together the strengths of LankaPay’s legally recognized digital signing certificates issued via LankaSign – the pioneering digital Certification Service Provider in Sri Lanka established in 2009 – and eMudhra’s globally trusted emSigner platform, which has enabled secure digital document signing across more than 68 countries since 2008. Through this collaboration, Sri Lankan citizens and businesses will be able to experience a seamless, secure, and user-friendly digital signing solution, enabling documents to be signed anytime, anywhere using iOS, Android, or web-based applications.
This partnership with eMudhra aligns with the national agenda to promote adoption of digital documents, reduce dependency on paper-based processes, and facilitate a more efficient, transparent, and secure digital economy. This collaboration aims to support the government’s long-term digitalization roadmap by enabling a secure digital documentation layer essential for e-government services, digital finance, and digital transformation.
By Sanath Nanayakkare
In a significant move to accelerate technological innovation in Sri Lanka, Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, and the Dialog-University of Moratuwa (UoM) Research Lab, has announced the release of SinhalaVITS, a state-of-the-art, open-source Text-to-Speech (TTS) model for the Sinhala language.
This non-commercial initiative delivers a powerful, high-quality, and natural-sounding Sinhala voice model to the public, making it freely accessible to developers, researchers, and students. The model is available for download on Hugging Face, the world’s largest open-source AI community, empowering anyone to build and experiment with advanced voice technology.
The SinhalaVITS model is the result of a deep-rooted collaboration that unites Dialog’s industry leadership with the academic excellence of the Dialog–UoM Mobile Communications Research Lab, fulfilling a vital need within Sri Lanka’s tech community for accessible, high-performance tools that drive innovation. By removing cost and licensing barriers tied to proprietary software, Dialog is empowering developers and researchers while fostering a more inclusive, collaborative, and future-ready AI ecosystem. This initiative further reinforces Dialog’s commitment to advancing Sri Lanka’s digital future—investing in open-source technology and academic partnerships to nurture local talent and lay the foundation for next-generation digital services built by Sri Lankans, for Sri Lankans.
The Hatton National Bank PLC (HNB PLC) commemorated raising LKR 10 bn with its first ever issuance of sustainable bonds by way of a market opening ceremony conducted on the trading floor of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) last week.
The 9th December issuance of 100 mn listed, rated, unsecured senior sustainable bonds, in five year and seven-year tenors, with a par value of LKR 100/- and rated “AA-(lka)” By Fitch Ratings Lanka Limited, was oversubscribed on the same day, raising LKR 10 bn.
Sustainable bonds, which were launched in Sri Lanka for the first time this year, are part of a series of GSS+ (Green, Social, Sustainable & Sustainability Linked) debt instruments. The proceeds of the sustainable bond issuance will be used by HNB PLC to fund the development and installation of solar, wind, biomass and hydropower projects, improve energy efficiency through retrofits, fund the construction of recognized ‘green’ buildings, fund investment infrastructure for water treatment, water conservation and efficient agricultural water technologies, finance housing development, healthcare and education for low- and middle-income families, promote women entrepreneurship, amongst others initiatives.
Damith Pallewatte, Managing Director and CEO of HNB PLC, who was the ceremony’s keynote speaker remarked upon the issuance of sustainable bonds commenting: “HNB’s LKR 10 bn sustainable bond issuance is a landmark step in advancing Sri Lanka’s sustainability agenda.”
Delivering his welcome address at the event, Rajeeva Bandaranaike, CEO of CSE, remarked upon rising corporate engagement in CSE’s GSS+ debt instruments stating: “HNB’s Sustainable Bond represents a welcome new addition to the list of leading Sri Lankan financial instruments that have set the example for the success of CSE’s GSS+ Bond framework which have allowed the capital market to operate as a financing vehicle for sustainable and socially equitable projects.”
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