About Hatch
Where It Started
Hatch started in 2018 on a simple belief: anyone with an idea deserves the room to build it, the space, the people, and the support to go further.
Sri Lanka had founders. What it didn't have was much holding them together. We started with a building in Colombo Fort and a narrow idea: put people in a room alongside each other and see what happens.
What Hatch is Now
Eight years on, we're the center of gravity for startups in Sri Lanka: a coworking home, a run of accelerator and incubator programs, a fund, and a community that reaches well beyond our walls.
Four things, deliberately connected. A founder comes in for a desk, ends up in a cohort, pitches at a demo day, and hires someone they met at a games night. That's roughly the point.
Space
Programs
Community
Events
By the Numbers
Inside Sri Lanka's Startup Ecosystem
An ecosystem isn't a building or a program. It's what happens when enough founders, investors, mentors and institutions sit close enough together that things start connecting on their own.
Here's what that looks like from the inside.
Reach and Impact
Around 400 startups have come through our programs. We reach roughly 90% of active Sri Lankan startups through some combination of space, programs and community, and hold 15+ strategic partnerships with corporates, development agencies and universities.
Sixty-one percent of our program participants are women. Worth stating plainly, because it isn't the regional norm and it didn't happen by accident.
Incubation and Acceleration
Incubators for founders with an idea and something to prove. Accelerators for companies with traction and a constraint to break. 23+ programs since 2018 — Startup Nation, AccelerateHer, ChallengerX, Connect, GRIT and the Green Innovation Lab among them.
Each runs as a cohort with mentors, partners and a demo day at the end.
Capital and Investors
We've built an investor network around our programs — angels, funds and corporate partners who follow what comes out of each cohort. Demo days put companies in front of them directly, and our corporate partners bring challenges, procurement, and occasionally acquisitions.
