Startup Ecosystem Elements and Their Interdependencies: A Systematic Literature Review of Sri Lanka

Startup ecosystems have emerged as foundational frameworks for understanding how entrepreneurial activity is generated, sustained, and scaled within national and regional economies. Despite substantial theoretical advances, the contextualisation of ecosystem elements within lower-middle-income economies undergoing structural economic stress remains an underdeveloped area of scholarship. Sri Lanka, which experienced one of the most severe combined economic, political, and public-health crises in its post-independence history between 2019 and 2024, provides a distinctive analytical context for examining how ecosystem elements function under systemic adversity.This systematic literature review analyses the key elements constituting a high-performing startup ecosystem and examines their conceptual and empirical significance in the Sri Lankan context during 20202025, grounding the analysis in the Majumdar Sociodynamics Framework and the Stam–Van de Ven (2021) ecosystem elements model.A systematic document analysis of 84 peer-reviewed articles, 31 institutional reports, and 18 policy documents published between 2020 and 2025 is integrated with secondary quantitative data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), World Bank, IMF, and Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Thematic synthesis is structured around a seven-element framework.Quality ICT Infrastructure and Cutting-Edge Technology emerge as relative ecosystem strengths while Startup-Fostering Policies and Availability of Startup Funds constitute the most critical constraints. The talent base is structurally deep but crisis-depleted through the emigration of 311,000 skilled workers in 2022. Sociodynamics analysis reveals that reinforcing cycles between Technology, ICT, and Workforce, alongside dampening cycles from Policy and Finance deficiencies, determine overall ecosystem performance more than any single element.Sri Lanka's startup ecosystem possesses genuine foundational assets but requires targeted, co-ordinated intervention across funding, regulatory simplification, and culture-building dimensions. The findings carry implications for ecosystem theory in developing-country contexts and for policy design in post-crisis economic recovery programmes.

Startup Ecosystem; Key Elements; Entrepreneurial Ecosystem; Sri Lanka

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