Skip to main content

IFC invests in PickMe to improve Sri Lanka’s transportation links

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is investing $2.5m in Sri Lanka-based ride-hailing company PickMe, whose taxi app allows users to request auto rickshaws and luxury cars. Amena Arif, IFC country manager for Sri Lanka and Maldives, says the country has the potential for a digital start-up ecosystem but has been held back by a lack of global funding. IFC says only 5% of start-ups get cash-for-equity seed funding to raise their first significant round of venture capital. IFC’s venture cap
June 19, 2018 Read time: 1 min
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is investing $2.5m in Sri Lanka-based ride-hailing company PickMe, whose taxi app allows users to request auto rickshaws and luxury cars.


Amena Arif, IFC country manager for Sri Lanka and Maldives, says the country has the potential for a digital start-up ecosystem but has been held back by a lack of global funding.

IFC says only 5% of start-ups get cash-for-equity seed funding to raise their first significant round of venture capital.

IFC’s venture capital group invests in growing companies that offer technologies or disruptive business models focused on emerging markets.

Related Content

  • The growth of ITS service solutions providers
    July 26, 2012
    Econolite's new subsidiary Aegis ITS has been set up to address the increasingly complex and exacting needs of agencies in the ITS sector. Chief Operating Officer Doug Terry talks about the evolution to service solution provider. A few very notable and honourable exceptions notwithstanding, it is these days becoming increasingly rare to find a public agency which develops its own traffic management systems. Indeed, most now rely on specialist manufacturers and suppliers to fulfil their needs. This has the h
  • IBTTA’s Jones sees turbulent times and a bright future for tolling
    November 10, 2017
    Colin Sowman talks to IBTTA’s Pat Jones about the future of tolling in a fast-changing world. Pat Jones may have been executive director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) for 15 years but in his words: “Never before have I seen so much change coming so fast in the transportation and tolling industry.” Amidst all this change, tolling companies are asked to provide funding for roadway building or improvements which will be repaid for over, say, a 30-year concess
  • The long road to Spanish enlightenment
    October 22, 2018
    Julián Núñez, immediate past president of ASECAP, gets his teeth into the vision of a European strategy for toll roads. David Arminas reports from Madrid. Getting European politicians to agree to a long-term cross-border highway infrastructure programme for toll roads is extremely difficult. It’s a bit like pulling teeth: people want to avoid the pain. But pain is something that Spanish operators, including Abertis, OHL, ACS, FCC and Acciona, have been going through for the past decade. The country has
  • E-tolling is the new normal
    April 29, 2020
    Electronic tolling has become a cornerstone for the next wave of innovation, says IBTTA’s Bill Cramer. So is this the end of the road for toll plazas?