We are excited to back Uniqus, a tech-enabled consulting firm that is uniquely built to help companies tackle what will be their most important challenges for the future: keeping pace with and meeting ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) requirements and milestones and maintaining robust accounting systems.
Run by experienced founders who have spent decades in the consulting domain, Uniqus will implement a global onshore-offshore model successfully pioneered by Indian IT companies. This model will enable Uniqus to provide high-quality services at a fraction of the cost of foreign competitors. While onshore employees will provide oversight continuous interaction with the client’s team, a large part of the work will be done offshore, thus bringing down the total cost and fees.
Typically, consulting companies have relied on manpower to execute projects, despite many parts of projects that can be automated by technology. Some examples of cases include areas like ESG reporting and the generation of financial statements. This has the potential to help not only bring down the cost for clients, but also compress project timelines. The company is actively working towards building technology in these relevant domains.
As nations set concrete targets to mitigate climate change, ESG will take centre stage and start to drive business decisions across organizations. Over $500 billion flowed into ESG integrated funds in 2021. Consumers are increasingly looking at ESG credentials of companies they buy from, and governments are under pressure to take stock of changes in climate. Bloomberg indicates ESG assets could grow to $53 trillion by 2025 – a third of all global assets under management.
Indian regulators have set Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) guidelines, which will make ESG reporting mandatory for the top 1000 listed companies in India (effective for the financial year ending 31 March 2023). In the U.S., ESG reports are published in some form by 90% of S&P 500 companies and approximately 70% of Russell 1000 companies1.
These regulatory frameworks are driving concrete steps among companies towards improving their performance in this space. The resulting increased transparency and push from investors and customers will lead to sustained efforts from all stakeholders. Inherently, this means that companies will need hand-holding across ESG assessment, strategy, implementation support, reporting and disclosure. With demand expecting to outstrip supply, Uniqus will be uniquely positioned to deliver valued services to companies.
Beyond ESG, accounting advisory is another key focus area where increased regulations, standardization and digital finance are opening new work streams. Using a hybrid model and a tech enabled approach by deploying a common platform across clients, Uniqus is geared to drive efficiency for clients across accounting services, transactions, carve outs, IPO / Sox (Sarbanes-Oxley provisions advisory) and more.
Sorin is excited to back a strong team with an established track record and ability to scale business – Jamil Khatri, Sandip Khetan and Anu Chaudhary. Jamil was previously with KPMG for more than 25 years, and headed its global Accounting Advisory, helping multiple Indian companies raise capital from US markets. Sandip headed the Accounting Advisory business for EY India and was part of its Audit leadership team. Anu brings with her more than 20 years of ESG experience, and earlier ran her own ESG venture, working with multiple clients across India and Europe.
For further details on Uniqus, visit https://www.uniqus.com/
To speak with our Sorin team, contact anshul@sorininvestments.com