India is now the third largest fintech industry in the world, with 1.4 billion people making 135 billion digital transactions last year. That makes it ripe territory for Australian startups, such as FootprintLab, looking to expand globally.
Sydney-based cleantech FootprintLab has a product in global demand: credible, up-to-date and commercially useful carbon footprint data.
Regulators, shareholders and consumers expect it. Government net-zero targets and carbon accounting are business priorities, but the data is hard to produce, often inconsistently applied and there’s a tonne to get through.
“What we want to do is bring all these government policies about climate change to life,” says co-founder Janet Salem.
“Governments can set ESG or net-zero goals and they can then introduce policies like everyone needing to disclose their carbon footprint. But where that runs into problems is that people don’t know how to do it, and they don’t have the data.
“Our mission is to enable anyone to know the carbon footprint and other sustainability footprints of any transaction so that they can report on and implement these policies, but hopefully decarbonise as well.”
Founded in 2022 by Salem, an ex-United Nations circular economy expert, and Dr Tim Baynes, a former CSIRO senior scientist, FootprintLab created a “sustainability data-as-a-service company”. They convert complex environmental data into formats that easily integrate with financial institutions’ workflows.
“We know the carbon footprint of literally any transaction in the world today, back to 2009 up to 2028,” says Salem. “We can help any payment company, fintech, bank, you name it. We can help them add environmental data to transaction data and that unlocks all sorts of solutions for the climate.”
It was a meeting of minds – and methodologies – that sparked their innovation.
“Tim wanted to make a methodology or tool to apply the data, and once I learned this I was like ‘No, don’t do that!’ These should be made by the people who work in those industries,” recalls Salem. “[So I asked him] Why don’t you come and work with me and we’ll just make sure that the data gets out there in a credible way?”
Salem, who is a University of Sydney PhD candidate in sustainability analysis integration in fintech, saw this opportunity to get important climate data out of universities and into the global financial sector.
“I could see businesses coming to the professors asking for data about this and that, and those discussions just being so painful to watch because academics want to do research,” she says.
Working with the University of Sydney and University of NSW, Salem and Baynes produce data that’s so credible it’s been adopted by the Australian Government’s Climate Active Program. And now, some companies in India.
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Making a footprint in India
Having a global impact was always part of the vision. The India opportunity made perfect sense.
“India is a great target market for Australian fintech because we have a small testing bed in Australia,” explains Baynes.
“We can bring innovation and agility to new products in India, whereas if you try to start something in India, you’ve immediately got to be ready for 10 million customers. You can do that in Australia with 10,000 or 100,000.
“In India, you have the sort of scale, companies and capacity to turn that into some major application.”
Salem recalls the initial surprise she and Baynes had at one payment gateway’s scale; a total of 3.6 billion transactions per year globally, processing AU$29 billion in India alone.
“We worked out that even if a small fraction of the carbon footprint is offset, that’s still equivalent to the emissions of a small country like Fiji,” she says.
The duo could see the synergies between the two countries: India has strong digital adoption, highly skilled workers and a growing middle class; Australia’s tech sector has the scalable solutions to meet the enormous demand of that market.
“Transactions in India are digital to the smallest transaction. There’s huge demand,” says Salem. “And India is the tech hub for the world’s financial system. Because India’s tech sector is providing the IT infrastructure for global financial institutions, you can actually have a global reach.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership on sustainability at the G20 Leaders’ Summit 2023, which specifically mentioned climate disclosure, gave FootprintLab even more impetus to explore the opportunity further.
Support from the right places
FootprintLab with their partner PayU in India. Image: Supplied.
In August 2023, FootprintLab took part in a fintech business mission to India with Austrade in partnership with Investment NSW.
“We went on an Austrade mission last year to the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai,” Salem shares. “They spent a lot of time with us before the mission trying to work out ‘who are you?’, ‘who’s your ideal client?’ and ‘what’s your objective?’ So that was really useful.
“Then, when we were there, they were able to introduce us to the right people in the right companies. We actually had quite a few pre-meetings with some of those companies, especially Billion Lives, who we ended up signing a partnership agreement with during that first trade mission.”
Off the back of that trip, FootprintLab inked two partnerships with Indian companies: payments platform PayU, which measures the carbon footprint of purchases and provide a one-click offset option; and BillionLives Business Initiatives, to help with ESG measurement and reporting and carbon offsetting.
“Austrade [and Investment NSW] helped us with two partnerships. With BillionLives, they made the introductions early, and they facilitated the partnership agreement so that we both knew what we could commit to in a nice signing ceremony that they also hosted while we were in Bangalore.
“PayU has come in from many different aspects. It goes back to my background at the UN and Tim’s background working with research institutions in Delhi… But what Austrade did was really help facilitate signing an agreement – really getting to a deal that could be discussed in a press release and giving us advice.”
The support of Austrade’s Australia India Innovation Network proved crucial to getting FootprintLab in front of the right people at the right time.
“The Australia India Innovation Network enabled a lot of connections for us,” Salem says. “They understood our business and who we needed to talk to, and really opened the doors for us to meet the right people from the start.”
Baynes agrees: “There are doors we would not have got in unless we’d been with Austrade.”
The network runs various programs to assist more Australian technology companies with entering India’s burgeoning digital sector. Fintechs in particular are being encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity right now.
“Fintechs should really engage with Austrade if they do want to get into global markets,” says Salem.
“I’ve worked with them in India, Singapore and Thailand, and they’re great at knowing who we should meet on the ground.”
Now that they have traction in India, FootprintLab is moving into the Singapore fintech market next. They’ve recently received a Federal grant to accelerate their plans and have a partner in the ESG space.
Applications open for June program
Austrade has a program in place to help local companies make their first steps into India. Applications are open now for the next intake of the India Tech Export Catalyst (ITEC), a government-funded six-week experiential learning program for Australian startups and scaleups curious about India or ready to export.
The online program gives tech businesses the chance to develop and refine their market access strategies with mentors and peers. Experts can help advise about on-the-ground realities and successful strategies around regulatory and tax frameworks, legal considerations and IP protection.
Businesses will come away with a practical India market entry plan, better knowledge of India’s high-growth economy, and access to downstream programs, potential partnerships and funding opportunities.
The fintech cohort commences on June 5, 2024. Express your interest by May 30, 2024.
APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.
For more information, email India@austrade.gov.au.
This article is brought to you by Startup Daily in partnership with Austrade.
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