Stockholm based Innorbis deliver state of the art financial technology enabling leaders to invest and achieve profit whilst maintaining sustainability. Angelica Lips Da Cruz, Founder & CEO discusses how Innorbis integrates sustainability factors into financial assessments.
If you consider the worlds of high capital investment and technology, images of blackbox trading, FinTech start-ups and artificially intelligent trading platforms were traditionally deployed to find the most relevant and profitable trading opportunities. However, now through Stockholm based Innorbis, investors are now also able to consider crucial environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria in a way that traditional tools simply cannot compete with, and the benefits of this more holistic view are impressive.
The world of financial investment has been on a rapid digital transformation as technology has allowed organisations to analyse ever more complex datasets, explore incredible ranges of scenarios and minimise the risk of serious losses within a portfolio.
But it’s not just the market’s desire for technological efficiency that is driving investment decisions in 2021. Now, more than ever before, investors want to factor non-financial aspects into their decision making with a strong focus on environmental, social, and governance elements.
One of the benefits of financial data is that it is quantitative in nature – it’s all about numbers and computers love numbers. Even though there has long been an appreciation of how non quantitative factors impact financial performance, it’s been very hard to find a way to combine these factors with traditional financial data.
This combination is crucial for those who want to be able to make sustainable investments and use their funds for both financial gain and a higher moral purpose.
The work of Innorbis AB is making this possible with investors and leaders now able to deploy capital in sustainable investments around the world by managing the environmental and social impact.
Innorbis have created an analytical tool that objectively measures social, environmental and governance aspects, as well as qualitative and quantitative integrated information. This then allows people to make better informed financial decisions and quickly.
Angelica Lips da Cruz, Founder & CEO of Innorbis, sat down with Business Worldwide Magazine to discuss Innorbis’ innovative approach and how they are able to combine cutting edge technology with exciting profits and a sustainably developing planet.
Thank you so much for joining us, Angelica. Starting with perhaps a spiritual focus, is it truly possible for the different powers of profit and ESG to be combined and work together?
It’s lovely to be here with you. It’s an interesting question and the straight forward answer is – absolutely yes. In fact not only can they be effectively combined, but we believe they have to be combined to be successful.
I’ve worked in investment banking and international organisations for many years and have seen first-hand how the ones that succeed are the ones that appreciate that there can be no gap between those two concepts. Capitalism and the markets require a new common metrics operating system and need to be rebooted so that we expect return on financial, natural and social capital.
So the challenge is not so much whether they should be combined or not – it’s how to measure and predict them accurately in an easy to use way so that every organisation can make better informed decisions about how to invest their funds.
What makes it so hard to achieve that and why hasn’t this been done before?
Well we all know that the financial data has been available for a long time and there have been some incredible developments from the technical side in terms of how to interrogate that data. But the missing piece has always been integrating the non-financial aspects with the financial data and then creating technology that can accurately analyse the whole dataset and deliver valuable insight.
That’s where Innorbis has been focused. It’s partly a technical play where we have created innovative systems to handle the analysis. But that’s just one part – the human angle is just as important and that’s where we’ve focused on bringing together experts from a range of disciplines.
That’s interesting. Are there other platforms that can do something similar?
There are certainly plenty of financial analysis tools and systems out there and some of them are very good. But there are none that are able to blend together the financial and non-financial in a seamless manner.
We measure the societal impact of an organisation across the different stakeholders, from employees, suppliers, clients, communities, cities – in fact anywhere the organisation activities has an impact.
We’ve identified 12 capital categories that provide a deep insight into the key areas that investors and leaders need to understand when they are considering financial strategies. The platform helps them understand where they should look for new targets and priorities.
As we’ve developed our tools and products, we’ve always focused heavily on two things – a sound foundation of data from the source and the needs of the user. For us if we can keep getting those two things right then we know we can deliver value and beyond.
There have been plenty of offers for our data and tools over the years but we’re focused on achieving a grand, long term purpose that we believe will genuinely help millions around the world. We’ve said no to those buyout offers and have never once looked back. To accelerate in the transition the tool needs to be from an independent source, with robust methodology for performance predictions.
Can you tell us a bit more about the Innorbis offering – who is it aimed at and how can they use it?
In terms of who it is for, we have a broad range of clients within the financial sector and we also work extensively with the public sector, large corporates, regulators and authorities in the sustainability field.
But it’s not just large organisations that can benefit from partnering with us. We focus on SMEs as well that are able to use the business intelligence that we provide as it helps them understand what investors are looking for and what types of information they should be tracking, reporting on and factoring into their plans for a more sustainable business model. SMEs and mid caps are key today.
When it comes to how our clients use Innorbis, there are many different approaches. From an investment perspective, we are very proud of our accuracy rates – our products have performed unbelievably with sharp ratios of 1.61 and returns of between 15% and 16%. It shows sustainable finance is not a trade off.
Many clients are also asking us to help them understand how they themselves can improve. We use our unique 12 capital category product to assess the actual status of an organisation across 500 parameters. The output from this analysis then creates a guideline for the organisation to help them see the opportunities for improvement across the four main F-ESG areas.
So there’s clearly been a lot of success for you and Innorbis already but what does the future hold?
Yes we are very proud of the success so far and it continues much more now with a lot to do. Any technology product is always on a journey of evolution. We like to stay agile and be able to move quickly when we see an opportunity and as we’re dealing with such complex, global issues, there are always partnership opportunities to scale even more!
No matter what though, we will not lose sight of our purpose. The only way forward is truly believing and acting with the knowledge that customers, markets and society are one and evolving. It is foolish to separate them and whilst there is obviously nuance in terms of what each group wants and needs, any solution HAS to serve them all.
We at Innorbis create the units that measure the worth, the extraordinary work and the station of each player in society. The ratings and measures reflect the blueprint, the warmth, the virtues, the purpose and intention, consequently the generational impact of each of company, city, country, government, institution, financial instrument and ultimately people who make it happen and live in our wonderful universality and world to be well treated and preserved, ultimately enjoyed and observed while doing it’s miracle by everyone and all. In this time of transforming the financial systems, we are calling pioneers to join us. Let’s cultivate sustainable impact together and be proud!
For further information on Innorbis, its tailor made solutions incorporating economic decision making and today’s human and environmental challenges, please visit the company website https://innorbis.com
