From Power Cuts to Powerhouse: Volfpack's Sri Lankan Startup Saga

1. How did you get started with Volfpack Energy?

To be honest, it was mostly luck. I met my co-founder Maithri through a random guy named Ashan (who’s now a good mate) at an exhibition. I was working on something else and just wanted his opinion. Then the April 2022 power cuts hit Sri Lanka hard, and suddenly everyone was talking about energy storage as a real alternative to fossil fuels. Maithri mentioned his background in supercapacitor research and said we should try building them. I replied, “Let’s do it.”

We started painfully slowly. Then things began to click. We met people who genuinely guided us and offered real support. A huge thanks goes to Professor Kumara from the National Institute of Fundamental Studies (NIFS), Maithri’s former supervisor, who gave us the crucial nudge we needed.

In the beginning, we were basically throwing whatever materials we could get our hands on against the wall, hoping something would stick. Then we discovered HydroGraph’s fractal graphene and everything fell into place.

2. Why do you prioritize energy cost reduction over environmental activism?

I love the planet, especially the ocean. I want to keep surfing clean waves for the rest of my life.

But a lot of today’s environmental activism feels like a luxury belief: more virtue signaling than real impact.

When energy is expensive or unreliable, billions of people stay trapped in survival mode. Families spend hours fetching water or fuel. Food spoils without refrigeration. Medicines go bad. Kids study by candlelight, if at all. Hospitals lose power, and industries grind to a halt. Poverty digs in deeper.

Make energy cheap and abundant, and the picture flips quickly. Refrigeration slashes food waste. Electric cooking eliminates indoor smoke and saves lives. Lights let kids study longer and learn more. Reliable power keeps hospitals running and creates jobs. People move beyond mere survival and start building real lives with dignity, opportunity, and freedom.

Few things deliver that much leverage for human flourishing so fast. That’s why cost matters more than slogans.

For Sri Lanka right now, renewables are a strong long-term option. Many ask why we don’t have more solar. One major reason is insufficient energy storage. We’re also a capital-constrained country, and the technology remains expensive. Plus, the heat here creates real lifecycle challenges for batteries. Cheaper, better energy storage will automatically drive higher adoption of renewables.

The only truly inclusive way to protect the environment without ignoring the poor is to invest in technology and engineers who can drive costs down.

3. How do you simplify complex tech ideas for startups?

With almost no money and highly complex tech, the only way forward is to break everything into the smallest doable next step.

Maithri grabbed basic instruments and started testing materials. We begged suppliers for free samples (huge shoutout to them) and ran endless random experiments just to learn faster. That phase felt like it would never end, but we stuck with it.

While he was in the lab, I was out learning the industry, talking to people, building a network, getting feedback, and teaching myself electronics basics. Pure grind. That early chaos lasted about two years.

We originally had massive plans and wasted months chasing $350K. Reality didn’t care. The universe forced us to think smaller, and it worked. We got it down to a $50K pre-seed round that actually moved the needle.

4. What were your biggest hurdles launching in Sri Lanka?

Let’s address the usual concerns head-on:

• Not enough capital

• A relatively small domestic market

• Limited government support compared to developed nations

• Unclear regulations

• Lack of advanced technical infrastructure

• Shortage of specialized talent and deep domain knowledge

• A small local ecosystem with limited risk capital for bold, unconventional ideas

We’re fully aware of these challenges. However, right above us lies one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets, and Volfpack is strategically positioned to tap into it.

We could easily add more hurdles if we wanted to dwell on obstacles. Instead, we choose to focus on the opportunities.

Sri Lanka has already proven what’s possible. Even during decades of civil war and under political leadership that offered little support, several Sri Lankan companies grew to exceed one billion dollars in revenue.

That track record removes any excuses. If billion-dollar companies could emerge from Sri Lanka under far more difficult conditions, then we can do it today.

We’re not ignoring the disadvantages. We’re simply committed to overcoming them. Our focus remains on why it is possible here, and on building something exceptional from Sri Lanka.

5. What lessons did you learn from a software-to-hardware pivot?

I fell in love with software the moment I discovered Agile, ironically a methodology born in manufacturing. While hardware has its own distinct appeal, software runs inside nearly everything we build.

What carried over most powerfully was systems thinking. The core principles of product development, management, and problem-solving are remarkably similar in both worlds.

We’ve fully embraced key lessons from software: moving fast and breaking things, failing fast and failing safely, and the spirit of “FAFO” (F* Around and Find Out). These philosophies give our team permission to experiment boldly, take smart risks, and accelerate learning through failure.

We apply the same mindset to hardware. We intentionally push our equipment to its limits, caring for it well but testing it hard, so we can quickly discover weak points, understand root causes, and build stronger versions. This hands-on stress-testing also gives us deep insight into how every component actually works, directly shaping better future designs.

That said, hardware presents some clear differences that make the approach more challenging. Unlike software, we can’t easily ship early versions to real users for live testing and rapid feedback. In hardware, you have to design and build your own rigorous, realistic tests, and creating tests that truly simulate real-world conditions is genuinely difficult.

Because of this, hardware is far more binary: something either works or it doesn’t. There’s much less room to hide behind approximations or “it mostly works” excuses. This forces a higher standard of clarity and validation at every step.

From Agile, we’ve carried over a strong bias toward action: build, test thoroughly, learn on the fly, and iterate quickly. Right now we’re operating in a somewhat “cowboy” mode, fast, experimental, and hands-on. As we grow, adding a bit more structure will help us do this even more effectively.

6. How do you lead and divide roles at Volfpack?

Ask the team for the real answer, but I try to set clear direction and then get out of the way so they can execute. We’ve got smart, practical people who figure things out.

We keep teams small and focused. It’s easier to move fast. Quick morning stand-ups keep everyone aligned. I ask lots of questions until I actually understand.

My job is pretty straightforward: set targets, make sure the lights stay on, and let the young, driven team grind. Our loop is dead simple: plan → do → learn → repeat. The only gap between us and CATL, Panasonic, or Samsung is knowledge. So we obsess over learning velocity. AI is already helping, and we’re pulling it deeper into our workflows every month.

7. What is your take on deep tech trends like AI for young entrepreneurs?

If you do deep tech just to chase trends, you’re f*. Deep tech takes 7–12 years or more to come to fruition.

You’ve got to see where the future is going and solve a real, deep problem. I’m dead certain the future is electric, robotics, drones, AVs, everything. We’re heading into sci-fi territory. So we’re building to help power that future.

It’s about long cycles and the hardest problems in society: health, energy, artificial intelligence, and more. Make sure you find the topic genuinely interesting, because there will be long, boring, unrewarding stretches. You need to really love what you’re doing. Trust me, the startup will suck the energy out of you if you don’t.

Advice: Don’t follow trends. Find something worth working on for 10–15 years and just go for it.

8. What steps do you recommend for youngsters starting ideas?

Learn to create value with literally zero resources.

Step one: educate yourself properly. Pick your topic, tech, or problem and sink 1,000 serious hours into it, books, YouTube, papers, whatever’s free. Go deep until you grasp the fundamentals.

People are in too much of a rush to be “successful.” Unfortunately, most deep tech takes a long time, really long. Often it takes years in the lab before you even know if it’s commercially possible. There’s a lot of sacrifice. Worst of all, you’ll see people running service businesses living much better lives with far more success and far less stress. It’s easy to say “Don’t compare yourself to others,” but that shit is extremely hard in practice, especially when Instagram makes it look effortless.

You need to prepare for this reality. Deep tech often means a long wait for revenue, and that sucks. You do have wins, but most of them don’t mean much to outsiders.

For tech especially: you need real understanding. “You don’t have to be technical” is half-true. You still need enough depth to add serious value.

Also, working is massively underrated. Get a job early, even a shitty one. You learn your own style, see other styles, and figure out what you’ll never tolerate. No pay? Work for free. Especially if you’re not an academic rockstar (I wasn’t).

9. How do you advise securing funding in Sri Lanka’s ecosystem?

We’re not Silicon Valley. We don’t have that kind of risk capital here. Keep pushing your idea forward until it’s objectively investable. Side hustle, weekend grind, whatever it takes.

Early on, I was still at a day job while Maithri was bussing to Kandy, sometimes waiting hours just to use lab equipment for 60 minutes, then bussing back. Classic “Startup Katta.”

We got lucky with Vivek, our seed investor, but he watched us grind for two full years first. Even then, I was still working another job to keep things alive. Now it’s a mix: investment, personal loans, all my money in, grants, and partnerships.

The good news is more people are getting back into startup investing in Sri Lanka, so there is a real chance. One advantage here is that it’s not hard to meet anyone. It’s always about three degrees of separation. Being visible matters. Talk to as many people as you can about your idea; every conversation gives you something new you hadn’t seen. Pitching is still important. It builds visibility and tests your idea. There are accelerators too, and they’re worth doing.

Keep putting yourself out there while making significant progress. When the startup is ready, the investors will arrive.

10. Where do you see Volfpack in 10 years, and what skills seal success?

In 10 years, we see Volfpack as a leading specialist in high-power, long-life energy storage, a billion-dollar company with manufacturing operations and strategic partnerships across the globe. We started with graphene-enhanced supercapacitors because they excel at solving critical problems that conventional batteries struggle with: delivering instant high power, surviving hundreds of thousands of cycles, and performing reliably in extreme heat.

We are actively expanding into hybrid supercapacitors with enhanced chemistries and, more importantly, into complete hybrid modules and integrated systems. These solutions combine the best of supercapacitors and batteries to deliver both high power and usable energy density, making them ideal for real-world demanding applications.

We plan to deliberately target South Asia, particularly India, and parts of Africa, where we see massive growth potential and where we believe we can own a strong niche. These markets need fast-response storage that can handle frequent cycling, peak power demands, and high temperatures without rapid degradation, challenges that shorten the life of traditional batteries and keep diesel generators running. Our technology will help unlock higher solar adoption, reduce expensive diesel dependence, stabilize microgrids, support telecom towers, enable commercial and industrial peak shaving, and provide the foundation for electric mobility, robotics, and drone infrastructure.

To scale effectively, we plan to establish manufacturing operations in key locations while forming strategic partnerships to build or co-develop factories globally as demand grows.

To get there, we need a world-class team with deep, varied skills: materials science, advanced chemistry development, hybrid systems integration, power electronics, high-volume module manufacturing, rigorous real-world testing, fast iteration, and relentless cost reduction.

We began with tiny prototypes in a small lab. In a decade, we want Volfpack to be the go-to name for high-power, heat-resistant, long-cycle energy storage solutions across South Asia and selected African markets.

I’m putting the next 10–15 years of my life into this mission.