After narrowly escaping a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka, my family was forced to flee the country, seeking refuge in Canada. The Canadian Dream started, with a newly claimed refugee status and no more than $30 to my family’s name.
Throughout my childhood, I carefully watched my father build small businesses from the ground up. From a pizza shop to a mechanic garage to an airport taxi service, I first learned business principles from my father, adopting his work ethic and immigrant hustle.
I decided to enroll in an accounting degree at the University of Guelph, fascinated by the language of business. Numbers came easy to me which allowed me to fast-track through my degree and get hired by the university as a Teacher Assistant (TA) for my own cohort.
While in university, I began developing and selling websites, sealing my first deal with a local accounting firm. Eventually, the student councils noticed my work and hired me to develop websites for them too. As my website business started to grow, it had to be put on hold as I was recruited by Deloitte to work in their downtown Toronto office. I graduated from The University of Guelph with High Distinction and jumped into the corporate world.
At Deloitte, I felt that I just wasn’t challenged enough, constantly dreaming of pursuing entrepreneurship. I would work at Deloitte throughout the week and drive cabs on weekends for my dad, in order to earn more money to fund my future business idea. After watching my father struggle with digital marketing solutions for his small business, I spotted an opportunity. I knew that there had to be a better way to scale digital marketing solutions for small business owners, like my father.
With that, I started ClientFlo out of my condo which was the answer for small business owners to acquire new customers through pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. ClientFlo eventually expanded to offer a broader range of marketing and go-to-market consulting services for much larger businesses. My firm worked closely with sales and marketing teams, managed campaigns, and built tools for over 300 clients including InMode ($448m IPO in 2019 NASDAQ: INMD) and Cynosure (acquired by Hologic for $1.8bn in 2017). ClientFlo was awarded Top PPC Agency in Canada by Clutch in 2017, 2018, and 2019. I was awarded the Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 by the Canadian Tamil Chamber of Commerce for my work at ClientFlo.
Through my consulting business, I had the privilege of working directly with high-performing businesses, gaining a deep understanding of how they operated and the ways they scaled their growth. This led me to my next opportunity – running the same growth playbook used by larger clients at ClientFlo… but for smaller businesses I owned. Combining my passion for investing and my operational background, I transformed ClientFlo into Atlasview Equity Partners, a private equity firm making control investments in software, tech-enabled services, and other asset-light B2B businesses. Our thesis is buying businesses in the lower middle market and adding significant value through our proven growth playbook. My firm has made investments in PureFilters, an eCommerce distributor of air, waiter, and other filtration products, Viostream, a software business specializing in video hosting, management and analytics for large enterprise and government agencies, and Soutron Global, a software business specializing in library and archive management.
On the side, I also invest in public equities and multi-family real estate in the Greater Toronto Area, managing a portfolio for myself and my family. Outside of entrepreneurship and investing, I enjoy writing on my blog, my newsletter, and my Twitter account. I’ve amassed 27k followers/subscribers and my content generates millions of monthly impressions. I also enjoy reading and traveling as much as possible!