Swedish fund manager Infranode has teamed up with artificial intelligence firm Silo AI to develop a product that will help boost its deal-sourcing capabilities by discovering new transaction opportunities.
Infranode started using the system earlier this year to help the firm’s existing origination team become more efficient in deal-sourcing. The Silo AI platform helps the team sift through the substantial information publicly available in the Nordics, principally in Sweden and Finland, Infranode’s founding partner Christian Doglia told Infrastructure Investor.
“We felt, while we have a sizeable origination team, we don’t have the people to churn through all that information,” he said. “With Silo, we’ve been discussing with them how to look through that and have been developing a number of criteria that this system looks for in this open bank of information. On the basis of a number of these that are related to our business, it identifies information that is more relevant to what we are looking for than not. It feeds the information to us and we filter it from our side. As we filter it, the system learns how to do the next step and becomes better and better with time.”
According to the firm, the AI-powered solution identifies investment opportunities in sub-sectors in which Infranode invests, such as transportation, energy, digital infrastructure and social infrastructure.
Doglia added that the system better equips Infranode’s team with the most relevant information when meeting particular stakeholders in the Nordics and can feed into proposals.
“The systems are getting so good and so intelligent that it could really change the way we work,” he said. “It’s about analysing information more efficiently and becoming a better and more selective investor on the basis of that information.”
However, Doglia was keen to stress the Silo AI platform is just one tool for its transaction team and is not intended to replace more traditional forms of origination.
“Human interaction in origination is still the prevalent part,” he said. “This is a smaller part and we pride ourselves on our relationships in the Nordics. This is us understanding further how we can lever on that local presence we have.”
Infranode’s most recent investment was agreed in July when it teamed up with Finnish firms Vantaa Energy and Keva to buy local utility Fortum’s district heating business in the Järvenpää-Tuusula area in Finland.
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