Banks and financial institutions
Before you fund the project,
understand the environment
it will operate in.
Project finance and infrastructure lending carry long-horizon exposures. The information environment around those assets is moving from day one — and the risk it carries is rarely in the financial model.
The problem Stratum solves
The financial risk is modelled. The environmental risk — social license, narrative, public reception — is not.
Banks and development finance institutions conduct rigorous due diligence on project viability: financial projections, legal structure, counterparty assessment, technical risk. What the due diligence process does not systematically include is a live reading of the information environment the project will operate in.
Infrastructure projects require sustained social license across their operating lifetime. Energy projects require community and regulatory environments that remain navigable. Development finance requires that the project narrative — what the investment means to the communities it enters — is understood before commitment, not managed retrospectively after opposition has formed.
Prajna reads the information environments around the project — across geographies, languages, and community types — as part of the pre-commitment assessment. Shunya generates positions that reflect what those environments are actually showing. Medha simulates how the project announcement will propagate through community and media environments before the commitment is public.
The environmental risk is measurable before it is a problem. That is where the leverage is.
Case study — Paytm IPO, November 2021
The institutional due diligence was complete. The retail investor environment was never read as part of the assessment.
India's largest IPO listed 27% below issue price on day one. ₹38,000 crore in market capitalisation was erased. The financial model was defensible. The regulatory approvals were in place. The institutional investor books were covered.
What was not part of the pre-IPO assessment was the retail environment — the information networks where retail investors were forming their view of the asset. That environment had been hostile and accelerating in the weeks before listing. It was never read as part of the due diligence process.
Had the retail environment been read as a component of the pre-IPO assessment, the exposure would have been visible before commitment. The financial case may not have changed. The communications strategy and timing almost certainly would have. The first day's outcome was not a market surprise — it was an environmental one that was visible in advance.
Add environmental due diligence to the pre-commitment process.
Request a briefing. Tell us about the project or investment you're assessing — we will show you what the information environment around it looks like before you commit.
Three engagement models: ongoing partnership, single-project commission, or a pilot against one live assessment.