Product: An online platform-based, ESG-focused supplier financing solution with Gen AI-powered ESG assistant. It offers companies a new set of tools intended to aid the ESG performance of their supply chains. These focus on:

1. Data collection from suppliers
2. Higher data quality and checks to prepare for mandatory supply chain data audits
3. Support for suppliers’ ESG investments through additional and funding
4. expanding B2B financial inclusion, making it easier for small businesses to access financial services
5. A proprietary ESG discounting solution.

Overview: Formed in 2023, Paris-based Koaloo.Fi aims to make sustainability profitable for companies and their supply chains. The current team includes experts drawn from the worlds of finance, sustainability, data science, supply chain, operations, and digital solutions. The company has benefited from the incubator programmes of Antler and ESCP Blue Factory.

The Koaloo.Fi platform leverages AI to enhance the reporting and accuracy of ESG metrics, and provides ESG-linked supplier finance, to help build supplier engagement with sustainability programmes. Google Cloud’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Generative AI (Gemini) is deployed to deliver the Koaloo.Fi platform’s ESG chatbot, Greta.

The solution is SaaS-based and thus should be quick and easy to deploy. It offers:

• Automated ESG KPI definition, benchmarked metrics, and target-setting for suppliers
• Automated and ongoing supplier outreach and data collection
• Automated supplier ESG data quality and authenticity verification for pre-audit assurance
• Dedicated, dynamic, real-time ESG scoring of each supplier, linked to specific pricing benefits.
• Sustainability performance-linked financing for suppliers to ensure supplier engagement, and continuous improvement in ESG metrics, to fund new ESG initiatives
• Supplier recommendations, based on company targets and collected data, to align with individual ESG strategies
• A proprietary ESG discounting solution, intended to boost buyer EBITDA, and supplier cost of funding.

Koaloo.Fi partners with FINGREEN AI, a fintech that leverages AI and open-source methodologies to collect and disclose ESG KPIs in alignment with European standards for SMEs.

Clients: B2B: corporate buyers and FIs

Revenue: n/a

Active region(s): EMEA, Asia, North America

Partners: FINGREEN AI, Ascend ESG, Finsight, Pricing for the Planet

Employees: 8

Funding: Mainly self-funded, but in June 2024, Koaloo.Fi launched a programme of equity-raising.

Ownership: Founder-owned

Elevator pitch: “Koaloo.Fi is about transforming ESG from cost to profit. We can reduce cost of goods sold by 2% and generate a return on liquidity over 12%, boosting EBITDA and valuation. We offer exclusive supplier incentivisation, motivating suppliers to improve ESG data collection and quality for accurate and comprehensive reporting. We can also introduce significant funding cost reduction,reducing supplier funding spreads tenfold. We provide proactive suppliers’ audit preparation preparing companies for supply chain audits by digitising data and evidence collection, validating it against other suppliers, and integrating auditor approvals directly onto our platform.”

Website: https://www.koaloo-fi.com

Email: [email protected]

TMI view: A solution that provides insight, incentives, and potentially lower-cost funding, to supply chain ecosystems seeking to move towards more sustainable practices.

Verdict: An innovative means of accelerating supply chain sustainability transitions.