David Cushman — HFS Research[00:12]
Hello and welcome to this, our latest recording of HFS OneEcosystem Hot Vendor Fireside, and this time I’m with Martha Amram, who is the CEO of GLYNT.AI. We designated GLYNT an HFS OneEcosystem Hot Vendor because it succinctly helps solve the data preparation problem that companies across all industries still face regarding their ability to act on sustainability. So, Martha, tell us a little bit about what it is exactly that GLYNT does.
Martha Amram — CEO, GLYNT.AI[00:43]
Thank you and glad to be here, David. GLYNT is that secret sauce, that missing piece, as you point out, between intention and actually being able to do sustainability. There are a lot of software applications that will give you analytics, but how do you get the actual and granular data to power those analytics? That’s the GLYNT job. We are a data-as-a-service company and we provide a suite of data products that power all sorts of sustainability applications, carbon accounting, and also just general enterprise software like SAP and Oracle.
David Cushman — HFS Research[01:02]
So what’s the real advantage for an enterprise that gets involved with this? I know there’s been lots of kind of discussions over limitations and controls, legislation around things that will make our planet more sustainable.
Martha Amram — CEO, GLYNT.AI[01:32]
So when we think of the benefit of GLYNT, of course, it’s that familiar better, faster, cheaper from back-office automation and modern data processing. But if you go through the additional ROI that a company can expect, our customers are doing data enrichment, bringing over business data, putting it together with this really accurate and granular sustainability data, and turning that around into operational wins across the enterprise. So, this is not pie in the sky, it’s here today. And if you recognize that sustainability is not a, oh my gosh, it’s a tax I have to do one time — it is going to be a reporting obligation for as long as the future holds, right? Now, integrated with financial statements as well, then the opportunity to save on the back office and get those operational wins makes the whole sort of future trajectory pay for itself.
David Cushman — HFS Research[02:24]
Let’s talk a little bit about how you got here. I always think that every startup is a solution to a problem that a CEO or founder woke up and thought, I can’t stand this anymore. There’s a problem here I need to fix. What was the problem that you saw in the market that you wanted to fix?
Martha Amram — CEO, GLYNT.AI[02:53]
So GLYNT started because I’m a trained economist, and then in 2008, 2009, we saw natural gas prices around the world hitting $8.09 dollars a therm. Then fracking came along and they went down as low as 80 cents a therm. The motivating factor for starting GLYNT was to help people navigate this very tricky, costly energy transition we were forced to be making. Suddenly, it wasn’t there anymore. So, in the middle of GLYNT’s storyline was a problem of where’s product-market fit and where’s the demand. We are experts in utility bills and all sorts of data for clean tech that allowed us to build our machine learning, keep improving our product, and now, as you know, the market has swung back. We are not globally big fans of fracking anymore. The opportunities have become a little bit more limited. Natural gas prices are higher for all sorts of reasons. So, we’re back in that world that led to the motivation of GLYNT. Plus, we have additional demand, which is this enterprise need to report emissions, which was not present 10, 15 years ago. Now, that enterprise need just spills across those who are under regulations and across their whole supply chain, as you’ve mentioned. So the demand is just accelerating, and to put a pin on that one, Amazon and Microsoft, that’s two out of the top 10 global supply chains, they’re requiring all suppliers to report their emissions and their reduction plans starting in 2024. So, if you want to get that little checkbox that you’re a preferred vendor or selected vendor, you’ve got two jobs to do now, and GLYNT data enables you to do those jobs more efficiently with better ROI.
David Cushman — HFS Research[04:43]
So what is it that you’re going to stand out for versus another competitor who may be trying to solve the same issues as you?
Martha Amram — CEO, GLYNT.AI[04:56]
GLYNT is very good at data processing, and this is an experience-based kind of competitive moat. Until you see the data coming at you and it’s incredibly varied from siloed sources, you don’t solve the problems your customer has, and they don’t want a vendor that says, well, I can do 70%, but you’ll have to solve the 30% on your own or get a second vendor. So, GLYNT’s experience over these years has allowed us to build a complete solution with numerous data products, you know, rich with features, and then we become the single-vendor data solution at scale with efficiency for our customers. The second reason that we’re standing out is audits and assurance. All sustainability data is now essentially non-financial data on financial statements, goes through audits, goes through an assurance review that’s very similar to an audit. So, to take a new workflow like sustainability data prep and put it through that is almost two tasks too many for most companies. So, GLYNT solves that problem by our certified data services.
David Cushman — HFS Research[06:04]
Let’s think about the future. Where do you see the business being in — I don’t, you know, we used to talk about, we used to ask people to think four or five years out, it’s kind of — I struggle to think beyond 12, 18 months right now. So, where do you see you being in 12 to 18 months? What’s going to get you there?
Martha Amram — CEO, GLYNT.AI[06:24]
You started with your introduction saying the OneEcosystem, and that’s actually the connector between the next 12 and 18 months and the next 5 years, because if sustainability and climate reporting is here today, this data has got to get done and everybody wants to turn it into a normalized business operation. So, during the next 18 months, we’ll be continuing to push this into accounts payable processing — not only do your invoice but do the line items with all of this additional data, and GLYNT has an API and widgets that anybody could use for that — put it into SAP. They’re building out what they call a green ledger that now financial planning can be animated in an if-then way between capital costs and emissions reductions. All these things are about 18 to 24 months out. The 5-year trajectory is data as you need it, the way you want it, that you know is compliant, that fits into the business case and the use case, you know, like a financial product, a real estate portfolio, and so on. It just becomes very purpose-driven data provisioning. It just is a normal way of thinking about all of our assets and valuations at that point.
David Cushman — HFS Research[07:36]
So, Martha, it’s a great story. It’s an important time for the work you’re doing. Clearly, a lot of companies are going to be really interested in what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. So, give us a kind of final summary of what it is they should come to you for and why.
Martha Amram — CEO, GLYNT.AI[07:47]
Thanks. So, companies are all over the place on experience and capabilities, and particularly when we have assurance and compliance requirements, if you’re not up to speed on your financial side on, you know, maybe Sarbanes-Oxley level or COSO level compliance, even sustainability compliance is going to be a heavy lift. So, with that preponderance of the big tasks and sustainability here to stay, I just encourage every company to say, let’s get started. From wherever we’re at, let’s pick off one thing we want to do rather than hypothesizing, just start with some data. So, we have found it very effective to say, well, let’s get 10 sites up and running with emissions data. From that, everybody learns from that experience and it simplifies what’s next. And the leaders in this space do this step-by-step motion. I encourage anybody to try it. Let’s just simplify and start where you’re at.
David Cushman — HFS Research[08:57]
Martha, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it and I’m sure our audience does too. So thank you very much and the best of luck to GLYNT. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how things develop for you.
Martha Amram — CEO, GLYNT.AI[09:10]
Sounds terrific. Thanks.
