Far from Silicon Valley's flashy spires and far from the SaaS madness of Chennai or Bengaluru, a strong but unsung tech revolution is brewing in the capital of Sri Lanka. WSO2, a trailblazing software firm in Colombo, is at its center, challenging what it means to create world-class enterprise technology outside the traditional startup circles.

Though palm-tree-lined Colombo doesn't exactly shout "tech hub" to the casual traveler, the city boasts one of South Asia's most resilient and globally competitive tech companies today. WSO2, which began in relative anonymity in 2005, is now a global player in the enterprise software market, investing in the likes of Jio Platforms, Wipro, and even European banks.

The success story of WSO2: An unlikely success story

The venture started when Sanjeewa Weerawarana, a computer scientist and open-source developer, came back to Sri Lanka after a stint at IBM Research in the U.S. His mission? To establish a software company in Colombo that would give back to the world of open-source while providing state-of-the-art middleware technology.

Then, the venture was regarded as ambitious, if not irresponsible. But Weerawarana was pragmatic: true innovation could be developed in Colombo just as effectively as in California. With co-founders Davanum Srinivas and Paul Fremantle, he began WSO2—a company that would become a key enabler of digital transformation worldwide.

Middleware powering the virtual world

WSO2's first bet was on middleware: the out-of-sight, behind-the-scenes infrastructure that allows different software systems to talk to each other. This was a bet ahead of its time. When businesses all over the globe started embracing cloud-based and microservices architectures, WSO2's open-source middleware solutions became essential to integrating and orchestrating complex systems.

From identity access and control to API management, WSO2's product offerings form the technology nervous system of large enterprises. In fact, the company now competes head-on with giants like Google's Apigee and identity management juggernaut Okta.

But whereas the majority of Silicon Valley start-ups cling to proprietary advantage, WSO2 was a dissident—it open-sourced its whole middleware platform. Today over 75,000 developers across the globe build upon its code.

Open source and AI: The new frontier

In his WSO2Con 2025 keynote, Weerawarana spoke about how the company has evolved and how AI has influenced the next decade of enterprise software. The newer products of the company have AI-enabled features, including natural language-based chatbot interfaces through which non-technologists can play with APIs.

We've come to an era where software no longer is eating the world—it's the world," Weerawarana had said. "For countries like Sri Lanka, digital sovereignty now arrives in the guise of software independence. That's why our cloud-native, open source plus SaaS model is so important."

Their own programming language, Ballerina, is tailored to make the integration of distributed systems easier—now positioned as an "AI-native" language for the next wave of intelligent automation.

A worldwide presence with roots in Colombo

Despite having its offices stretch from the U.S. to Australia and its clients scattered in over 90 countries, the company is still located in Colombo. Having been the operations hub has not only retained talent within the company but has also facilitated the entry of a new generation of computer scientists and engineers.

This Colombo-nexus Sri Lankan software company has created over 800 jobs globally and kick-started a network that counts at least 100 alumni who have taken PhDs in computer science. It has handled over 60 trillion transactions and has facilitated over 5,200 enterprise deployments across government, healthcare, and banking industries.

WSO2Con featured Mifan Careem, Senior Vice President and Chief Solutions Officer, sharing case studies of how the platform handles over 10,000 API calls per second for a bank in Europe and 50,000 mobile accesses of hotel rooms per second for an international hospitality firm.

India's reliance on WSO2's backbone

India is among the largest markets for WSO2 at present. Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (a Reserve Bank of India subsidiary) has introduced WSO2 products for its Unified Lending Interface recently, eliminating manual verification and streamlining credit approvals.

Wipro also standardized its Digital Integration as a Service API marketplace on WSO2's stack. "It's our system of services—if it goes down, we're blind," Wipro's CIO Kenny Kesar explained, underscoring the importance of WSO2's role.

India's largest telecommunication network provider, Jio Platforms, uses WSO2 to handle its gigantic volumes of transactions and HR functions, including tax services under India's GST regime.

Longevity in a changing world

"Technology companies don't tend to survive this long," Weerawarana said. "But achieving 20 years—especially for a software company in Colombo—is something. It indicates that we've been able to stay relevant, grow, and deliver world value."

To him, WSO2's narrative is one of digital sovereignty. As nations and companies rethink their reliance on foreign platforms and cloud oligopolies, WSO2 provides the alternative: open-source, AI-powered, sovereign software solutions built from the ground up.

Conclusion: Colombo's quiet tech revolution

WSO2's story is a testament that a Colombo-based software company can beat the world's best, create local talent, and push the boundaries of what is possible with open-source software. It's a reminder that next-generation software giants won't necessarily be born in Silicon Valley—but in unexpected places around the world like Sri Lanka.

With the digital economy going increasingly global and decentralized, WSO2's success heralds an unstoppable revolution: software superiority knows no postcode.