The Sri Lankan software firm quietly writing AI-first code for governments, universities, and global manufacturers.
In December 2018, three engineering graduates from the University of Moratuwa - Buddhishan Manamperi, Tharindu Malawaraarachchi, and Ramesh Rathnayake - put their names to a company called Fcode Labs. They were school friends first, classmates second, and had each tried and failed at earlier startups. Fcode Labs is the one that stuck.
Seven years on, that trio runs a team of roughly 88 engineers across two bases - Nugegoda in greater Colombo, and Singapore - shipping software for clients on four continents. The work is not glamorous by design. Fcode Labs builds the systems other organizations depend on: healthcare platforms, machine-learning models, cloud back-ends, mobile apps, and blockchain infrastructure. Much of it carries someone else's brand.
What the company sells, plainly, is engineering capacity that behaves like an in-house team. Its own reported work split tells the story: roughly 55% global projects, 40% local, and about 5% proprietary products. That last sliver is now growing - in March 2026 the firm launched Forevate, a real-time market-intelligence product of its own.
Fcode Labs positions itself as an "AI-first digital product strategy partner." Stripped of the label, that means two things clients actually buy. The first is project delivery: a company arrives with an idea or a legacy system, and Fcode Labs designs, builds, and ships the software - full-stack development, UI/UX, QA automation, DevOps, and the machine-learning layer on top. The second is dedicated engineering teams: vetted pods of engineers who operate as an extension of a client's own product organization, sidestepping the cost and delay of local hiring.
The customer list is the firm's strongest credential. Fcode Labs is a registered vendor to the Singapore Ministry of Health, has worked with the University of Auckland, and has taken on projects for Sri Lanka's largest enterprises - MAS Holdings, Brandix, the David Pieris Group, and Dialog Axiata among them. Abroad, it has built for Germany's Exaxyme GmbH and Canada's Social Motion Inc, and has contributed engineering to Mercedes-Benz systems.
Building an engineering team locally is slow and expensive. Fcode Labs supplies dedicated pods that ship from day one - the outsourcing model reframed around ownership, not headcount discounts.
Enterprises sitting on aging systems need modern web, mobile, and cloud platforms - often with machine learning layered in. The firm handles the full transformation, not just a slice.
Companies own plenty of internal data but miss the external signals moving their market. Forevate closes that gap with real-time competitor, pricing, and trend intelligence.
The firm's own reported distribution of effort - global services still dominate, but proprietary products are the frontier it is now expanding into.
End-to-end web, mobile, and cloud applications - full-stack build, UI/UX, QA automation, and DevOps.
Computer vision, NLP, predictive analytics, generative AI/LLMs and RAG - plus model validation and bias detection.
Vetted engineering pods that operate as a seamless extension of a client's product team.
Smart contracts, dApps, DeFi, and NFT/GameFi development on secure, scalable infrastructure.
A real-time market-intelligence product fusing internal data with external signals - competitor moves, pricing, and social trends - across manufacturing, logistics, retail, e-commerce, and FMCG.
Unusual work most agencies avoid - including AI-based protein engineering for pharmaceutical development.
Co-CEO. Leads strategic direction and growth into new markets; background spans software engineering, AI, machine learning, and robotics.
Co-CEO. Oversees global partnerships and operational strategy, guarding a collaborative culture as the firm scales.
CTO. Leads technical direction and the development of the firm's engineering practice.
Sri Lanka has a mature software-services sector - names like WSO2, 99X, Sysco LABS, and Creative Software have exported engineering for years. Fcode Labs competes there, and against the global market of dedicated-team providers and boutique AI studios. Its differentiation is less about a single technology than a posture: pitch talent rather than cost savings, keep a flat structure so feedback moves fast, and take on the harder, stranger projects - protein-engineering AI, blockchain health systems - that thin the field of willing vendors.
The culture is part of the product. Fcode Labs was certified as a Great Place to Work in 2022, ranked among Sri Lanka's 50 best companies, and placed 35th among Asia's small and medium-sized workplaces. It sponsors employees' Master's degrees and professional qualifications, and runs on flexible hours and a family-like structure. For a services firm, retention is delivery capacity - the two are the same line item.
Where it fits in the market, then, is a specific niche: a mid-sized, culture-forward engineering partner from South Asia that can credibly say it has shipped for a government health ministry and a luxury automaker in the same year.
Three University of Moratuwa engineering graduates incorporate Fcode Labs.
Wins E-Swabhimani 2019 and reports an early round of about USD 80,000.
Certified as a Great Place to Work, ranked 35th among Asia's SMBs, and represents Sri Lanka at ICT Spring, Luxembourg.
Grows past 80 engineers, serving the Singapore Ministry of Health and University of Auckland across seven-plus countries.
Releases a real-time market-intelligence product for manufacturing, logistics, retail, e-commerce, and FMCG.
It is a software engineering firm that builds AI-first digital products and provides dedicated remote engineering teams - covering digital transformation, machine learning, product engineering, cloud, DevOps, UI/UX, and Web3/blockchain.
Its main office is in Nugegoda, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, Sri Lanka, with an operational base in Singapore.
It was founded in 2018 by Buddhishan Manamperi (Co-CEO), Tharindu Malawaraarachchi (Co-CEO), and Ramesh Rathnayake (CTO), all University of Moratuwa engineering graduates.
Clients span governments, universities, and enterprises, including the Singapore Ministry of Health, University of Auckland, MAS Holdings, Brandix, and Dialog Axiata, across seven-plus countries.
Forevate is Fcode Labs' 2026 real-time market-intelligence product that combines a company's internal data with external signals - competitor activity, pricing, and social trends - to speed up business decisions.
Product demos, interviews, and the firm's channels - Forevate by Fcode Labs publishes on YouTube.