Suranga Chandratillake

Suranga Chandratillake OBE FREng (born October 1977[1] in Kandy, Sri Lanka[2]) is the founder and former CEO of blinkx,[3] the San Francisco-based video search and advertising company[4] which later became RhythmOne. After eight years as CEO and taking blinkx public, Chandratillake became the company's Chief Strategy Officer and, in 2014, returned to Europe to join the UK-based venture capital firm, Balderton Capital, as a General Partner.[5][6]

Suranga Chandratillake
සුරංග චන්ද්‍රතිලක
Born1977
Kandy, Sri Lanka
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge, England
OccupationFounder and CEO of blinkx.com

Career

Prior to founding blinkx, Chandratillake held a variety of roles in technology, sales and marketing at Morgan Stanley, netdecisions and anondesign.[7]

Chandratillake holds an MA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge; specializing in distributed processing architectures, he received a double first.[8] While at Cambridge, he was the first web editor of the University's student newspaper, Varsity.[9] Soon after graduating, Chandratillake joined Autonomy Corporation as lead R&D engineer on the company's core data analysis engine.

Chandratillake moved to California as Autonomy's Chief Technology Officer to set up an office in Silicon Valley, where he was responsible for growing the company's research and development division in the United States. Autonomy set up blinkx as a standalone business in 2005, with Chandratillake as CEO. The spinout followed an internal project that Chandratillake set up to develop software that would index and find information at a desktop level.[10] Chandratillake took blinkx public on the London Stock Exchange on May 22, 2007.[11]

Chandratillake has spoken at industry events including the Financial Times' Digital Media Conference, Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and the Monaco Media Forum. Named a Young Global Leader Honoree in 2009 by the World Economic Forum, Chandratillake has also been recognized as a leader in Science and Innovation by The Observer's Future 500 list, and one of Digital Media Wire's "25 Executives to Watch in Digital Entertainment".[12][13][14]

Chandratillake holds patents in the area of video discovery and online video advertising,[15][16] is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was a 2012 recipient of the Academy's Silver Medal.[17] In 2017, he was appointed a member of the Council of Science and Technology, a body that advises the UK Prime Minister on strategic science and technology policy issues.[18][19]

Since joining Balderton Capital, Chandratillake has overseen investments in a number of European technology startups including Contentful, Magic Pony (acquired by Twitter in 2016)[20] and Vivino.

In the 2018 New Year Honours, Chandratillake was awarded an OBE for services to engineering and technology.[21]

References
  1. "Suranga CHANDRATILLAKE - Personal Appointments (free information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 2017-06-11.
  2. "Forty Under 40: Suranga Chandratillake". 24 February 2012.
  3. "Blinkx Reinvents Itself Again, Adapting to the Future of Video". 18 September 2012.
  4. "About - blinkx". Archived from the original on 2013-05-21.
  5. https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/blinkx-founder-to-join-venture-firm-balderton-capital/?_r=0
  6. https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=10880094
  7. "Executive Team - blinkx".
  8. https://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/hi-tech/13084-entrepreneurship-driven-classrooms
  9. "Natural born code writer", Ingenia, Issue 72, September 2017
  10. "Natural born code writer", Ingenia, Issue 72, September 2017
  11. "Blinkx IPO shares soar to near-record debut". 27 May 2007.
  12. "World Economic Forum Announces New Batch Of Young Global Leaders (Mark Zuckerberg, Chad Hurley, Kevin Rose And More)". TechCrunch. 25 February 2009.
  13. "Suranga Chandratillake, CEO of blinkx, Nominated Young Global Leader 2009 by The World Economic Forum". blinkx.com. 26 February 2009.
  14. "2009 "25 Digital Entertainment Executives to Watch"". Digital Media Insider. 11 December 2008.
  15. "Various methods and apparatuses for an engine that pairs advertisements with video files".
  16. "Various methods and apparatus for moving thumbnails with metadata".
  17. "The Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal".
  18. http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/blinkx-founder-elected-fellow-of-the-royal-academy-of-engineering-163656926.html
  19. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-members-of-the-council-for-science-and-technology-confirmed
  20. Lunden, Ingrid (20 June 2016). "Twitter pays up to $150M for Magic Pony Technology, which uses neural networks to improve images". TechCrunch. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  21. "New Year's Honours list 2018"
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