Lithika Ranepura has moved across industries and continents, from building a fast-growing cosmetic medical company in Sri Lanka to developing advanced AI trading technology in the United Kingdom. With a strong academic foundation in investment, hands-on experience running and selling a successful business, and a clear vision for modern finance, he is now leading Bro in Finance Ltd and its flagship product Avagance. In this interview, he talks about what shaped his journey, the gaps he sees in the global fintech landscape, and where the platform is heading next.
What inspired you to move from running a cosmetic medical business in Sri Lanka to building financial technology products in the UK?
While I was running the cosmetic clinic, I was able to delegate most of my work and ended up having a lot of free time because the company was running like a well-oiled machine. So I decided to apply to the University of Birmingham, and they offered me a scholarship to study there. I’ve always been fascinated by finance, especially forex, crypto, and the stock markets, and I’ve always had a keen interest in understanding how financial markets move. I also felt that there should be a better way for common users to trade and invest with minimal information, especially now when attention spans are so low. At the same time, modern capitalist economies depend heavily on capital markets being efficient and accessible, and reducing information asymmetry is a big part of that. This is why we started the financial technology company.
How did your academic background in investment and your hybrid 3ANN–LSTM research model shape the vision behind Avagance?
While I was researching machine learning models for forecasting economic variables and financial assets, I realised that most models used on their own don’t perform well outside the training phase. Because of that, I decided to code a new model, the 3ANN–LSTM hybrid, which is a multi-layer neural network designed for short-term forecasting. After seeing how accurate my model was, and because I genuinely enjoy coding, I expanded the idea into a multi-asset prediction system. That eventually evolved into the development of what is now Avagance.
You achieved a successful 2× exit from Britanna Medicare. What lessons from that journey influenced the way you now build and scale Bro in Finance Ltd?
The main lesson I learned from the exit was that when someone looks at buying your business, the first thing they care about is proper financial statements and the brand you’ve built. With time, Britanna Medicare became a trusted name. We trained staff at every level, which naturally increased sales through word of mouth. I also learned how valuable a strong board can be. Having people who filter ideas and question decisions helped us grow sales even during the transition period before the exit.
Good lawyers and accountants also make a massive difference. Our documents were perfect and the deal closed quickly because everything was audited from day one. I also realised how important it is to scale while keeping quality high. We were early adopters of Facebook advertising in Kandy and got huge returns, but we never let growth weaken customer satisfaction. That balance is something I carry into Bro in Finance Ltd today.
Avagance aims to bring institutional-level insights to everyday investors. What gaps in the market did you see that pushed you to create this platform?
There was no platform where a normal investor could describe a trading idea in natural language, convert it into a strategy, test it, and publish it. Another major gap is tax. Multi-asset traders struggle to calculate capital gains across different broker accounts. Avagance solves that by pulling trades from multiple accounts and generating tax-ready reports.
The trading experience is also fragmented. People jump between apps for fundamentals, technicals, sentiment, and execution. We built Avagance to centralise everything. Users can research, trade, use AI forecasts, build strategies, see social insights, and handle tax in one place. We also added a curated feed for qualified writers and analysts to create localised content. The goal is a full ecosystem that fixes the fragmentation problem.
What role does artificial intelligence play inside Avagance, and how do you ensure the technology provides reliable and practical guidance for users?
AI is the base of our application. We built systems to collect and clean data so we can analyse portfolios in a meaningful way. Our Smart Portfolio uses AI to score risk and automatically build a portfolio. Short-term traders can use our prediction module, which runs our machine learning models every week.
Users and asset managers can also create trading strategies using natural language. The AI converts the logic into a strategy that can be tested and deployed, or published to the marketplace. Writers get AI tools for idea generation, image creation, and data analysis.
On the tax side, AI calculates capital gains from closed trades and builds HMRC-ready reports. For language tasks we currently use third-party LLM APIs, but the goal is to build our own models trained on curated platform data. The platform is geared toward users with at least some trading knowledge or a college-level background, which allows the AI to deliver more advanced features.
Your company is positioning itself in a crowded fintech landscape. What makes Bro in Finance Ltd and Avagance stand out from other tools?
We position Avagance as an AI trading super app, which very few companies are doing. We combine AI prediction models, curated social content, automated trading, natural-language strategy creation, and tax tools in one platform. Most competitors offer only one side of this.
Our approach is multi-sided. We offer a direct consumer product, and we also serve brokers who want to plug into our platform. That lets even small brokers offer a premium experience without building it themselves. Strategies can be created, tested, deployed, and sold in a marketplace, which creates a new ecosystem.
Avagance can serve almost any market with an exchange, and our content is localised by writers from each country. All of this sits on top of an AI foundation that acts like a neural layer above many brokers, which is something a single broker cannot easily replicate.
How has working with your co-founder, Dinuwan Fernando, shaped the development of the business and the direction of the product?
Coming from a finance background with only basic Python knowledge, I relied heavily on his software engineering strength. At first we built simple prototypes, and over time those early experiments grew into a full-scale AI trading platform. We no longer use the old ML models and now use deep learning models that improved forecasts by around 50 percent.
We worked extremely hard, sometimes more than 18 hours straight, to build and deploy features. We both ended up shaping the frontend together because I had a very specific vision for the interface. Dinuwan built core systems like messaging, support, ads manager, and the news timeline. His role in QA testing has been critical. Our ability to work together and push through challenges is a big reason we built this platform in a little over a year.
What can users expect next from Avagance and the wider Bro in Finance ecosystem as you continue to grow?
Our main focus is building Avagance into a global brand. We plan to add a P2P crypto exchange and lending feature, where interest rates are market-driven and scored by AI. We also plan to launch a whistleblower exchange for approved writers, giving them access to valuable investigative insights.
We want to expand into fractional real estate investing inside Avagance, creating a single place where users can research investments, trade, let AI manage portfolios, lend and borrow, and file capital gains taxes. More details are available in our white paper.
From the editor…
Lithika Ranepura is aiming to reshape how everyday investors access financial tools by combining deep learning, natural language strategy building, and multi-broker connectivity in a single platform. As Avagance expands globally, Bro in Finance Ltd is positioning itself as one of the most ambitious players in the AI-driven future of trading and investing.
You can connect and follow up with Lithika Ranepura at broinfinance.com or X @BroInFinance
