John Keells X 4.0 launched to support Sri Lankan start-ups

John Keells Group Chairman Krishan Balendra

John Keells Group CIO and Executive Vice President Ramesh Shanmuganathan

John Keells Group Assistant Vice President and John Keells X Head Wishanth Wijesinha

Since its inception in 2016, the John Keells X program has been helping start-ups obtain funding, training and the right connections to scale and grow into successful companies. Popularly known as JKX and now in its fifth year, the program has evolved with three unique tracks: Accelerate, Innovate and Elevate, which are poised to help Sri Lankan start-ups scale and secure opportunities to build successful businesses. The program opened its doors to a new batch of start-ups on 1 December.

John Keells Holdings PLC (JKH) is Sri Lanka’s largest listed conglomerate operating over 70 companies in seven diverse industry sectors, with a rich history spanning over a century.  From a budding start-up to a scale-up, there are immense opportunities to be gained by working with such a corporate giant. With the JKX program serving as the bridge between the two, it’s the gateway to success. Sharing his thoughts on the launch of the latest edition of John Keells X, John Keells Group Chairman Krishan Balendra said: “We are excited to relaunch John Keells X, which will allow both early-stage and mature start-ups to integrate with the John Keells Group’s ecosystem. 

“We are encouraged by the progress that we have seen over the years and are keen to build on this positive momentum, with the objective of incubating and nurturing start-ups and giving them opportunities to align and integrate into our group’s business portfolio where relevant and driving open innovation as a key strategy for the group.”

Describing the philosophy of this year’s program, John Keells Group Group CIO and Executive Vice President Ramesh Shanmuganathan added: “It’s been five years since we launched John Keells X. Every time we’ve looked at the next point of inflection for the program to become one of its kind so that the participants can leverage and benefit from the larger ecosystem that JKH continues to build as a conglomerate. 

“This year our program, JKX 4.0, is very unique in that we will be launching three tracks that are uniquely poised to attract and nurture disruptive start-ups, solve use-case led challenges as well as scale established players.”

The first track of JKX 4.0 is JKX Accelerate, which is a start-up accelerator program. The most promising start-ups will be accepted into the pre-accelerator stage to be investor-ready. After the demo day, the winning start-ups will receive a seed investment of Rs. 5 million each and then get accepted into the formal JKX accelerator, where they get further support to scale with training, mentoring, office space, access to the market and follow-on funding opportunities up to Rs. 50 million. 

The second track of JKX 4.0 is JKX Innovate, which is a series of business challenges posed by companies in the JKX corporate network and its partners. Any start-up interested can apply to solve these challenges and co-create solutions with the business owners over eight weeks.

The third track of JKX 4.0 is JKX Elevate, which is designed to support promising scale-ups, which refers to start-ups that have established a scalable business model. Here, JKH would come on board as investors, injecting that crucial growth capital needed.

The JKX programme is open to technology and tech-enabled start-ups from all industries, not simply those in which JKH has an active presence. Inviting start-ups to apply, John Keells Group Assistant Vice President and John Keells X Head Wishanth Wijesinha said: “An ideal start-up for us is one with a strong founding team. They’re committed to a long-term vision, have complementary skill sets, are knowledgeable about the problem and are focused on building a large and scalable business.”

Applications for the JKX program are open and interested start-ups can apply by visiting the John Keells X website at www.johnkeellsx.com.