Tools to reduce infrastructure project development time

Image courtesy Infraclear

Commercial approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Adoption of an innovative partnership / risk sharing model.

Technology approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Implementation of a data platform or digital twin for greater transparency over performance; a change in data standards/architecture; innovative use of machine learning to analyse infrastructure data 

Finance approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Venture capital coming in to support infrastructure

Infraclear is a fintech company that was started by people with experience in project finance and machine learning. It is backed by venture capitalists focused on finding transformational solutions to decarbonisation. Infraclear has gathered one of the world’s biggest databases of infrastructure project agreements and developed machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to extract granular data on terms. Using this data, it is building benchmarking tools that can reduce the time it takes to develop a project by 50%, increase the supply of bankable projects by 2.5x, reduce negotiation, and help make infrastructure a transparent, standardised asset class. The data are also being married with climate, ESG, and performance data. 

The company is working with an established financial data provider to reach thousands of clients and create new products together. 

Challenges experienced/overcome in implementation

The biggest problem is that data are not readily available, and disclosure is uneven. Investors seeking to invest want to be able to analyse how prior projects were structured, and citizens and NGOs need to be able to monitor projects. Infraclear believes that the first step to creating an Infratech-driven economy is to be able to make infrastructure project agreements – including performance data, ESG data, and climate data – available, and free to use.  

From Infraclear’s perspective, governments could play a vital role in creating the foundation for an InfraTech economy by: making infrastructure project agreements, along with associated amendments, annexes, and waivers available on public websites; publishing data in human and machine-readable formats (XML or XBRL); creating a consistent standard for what data is published; and publishing data at a regular frequency. Infraclear also recommends that all governments adopt the Creative Commons CC-BY license Creative Commons license (CC-BY version).  

Note: This case study and all information within was submitted by Infraclear in response to our global call for InfraTech case studies.