Manoj Ranaweera

Manoj Ranaweera founded his first tech startup, a FinTech in electronic invoicing and payments, in 2004. He failed miserably and, in the process, figured out he did not know how to build a tech startup or knew others who were building tech startups in his adopted city, Manchester, UK.  He then founded Techcelerate (initially called Northern Startup 2.0), which built Manchester’s tech startup ecosystem from 2006 to 2013, and Manoj and the fellow tech founders used the events and workshops to learn how to build, grow and exit tech companies.

In 2007 Manoj founded, edocr.com which was recognised in 2008 as one of the hottest 20 tech startups in the UK, which led to touring San Francisco, USA for a week. In 2013, GP Bullhound acquired the Northern Tech Awards from Manoj, the flagship event of Techcelerate and the only black-tie event that recognised tech entrepreneurship in the UK. In 2015, edocr.com was acquired by US-based Accusoft.

In 2018, Manoj restarted Techcelerate to reduce wastage in building and scaling tech startups. As part of this initiative, Manoj has built a trusted tech founder network, helping tech founders in their journey from start to exit.

To further assist tech founders, Manoj launched Deal Lite (intelligence on UK venture-backed tech startups and investors who funded them) and SkilledUp Life (volunteer talent for tech startups).