Infrafintech – Infrastructure finance reimagined is an innovative financial journalism podcast. It’s a serial podcast, meaning each episode builds from the last.

Most podcasts about infrastructure finance and finance, in general, are episodic. Podcasters interview a personality or a panel covers a topic for a given episode. They have a conversation and the audience is like a fly on the wall, gaining insights into how those ideas and trends might apply to their own work.

So why is IJGlobal covering infrafintech? 

Our primary focus is covering infrastructure finance at the project level, perhaps uncovering the debt pricing on an 18-year non-recourse loan for a Taiwan offshore wind farm. Or maybe disclosing the short-listed bidders on an M&A transaction concerning the equity interest of a road project company in India.

This first podcast season doesn't share any project-level details nor does it offer particular insights for sector specialists. Rather, it tells a story about an industry-wide issue – the nexus between infrastructure, finance, and technology.

The word infrafintech, which we coined in a feature in 2021, only appears on the IJGlobal website 4 times. Out of nearly 150,000 news articles and features, infrafintech really doesn’t appear on anyone’s radar.

Talking about the why not to cover infrafintech reveals exactly why we should cover it on our first podcast season ... because it’s not on anyone’s radar.

Even well-known business analytics platforms and global fintech databases don’t categorise infrafintech within the fintech industry. The market is undoubtedly small. But that’s today. What about tomorrow? ... What about developing a future worth creating?

Infrafintech – Infrastructure finance reimagined puts a stark question to the infrastructure finance industry ... Why are we practically the last area of financial services to adopt fintech solutions? 

Fintech has significantly enabled and disrupted nearly all aspects of financial services. Yet to date infrastructure finance is the black sheep in the fintech family.

Infrafintech may have its greatest impact in developing markets including those in Asia Pacific, where the need to increase technology investment, lower impact costs, and enhance policy measures is abundantly clear.

This first season targets three audiences – daily users of infrafintech, infrafintech solution providers, and financial backers of infrafintech, whether in the venture capital or corporate venture communities. This triumvirate represents the demand, supply, and financing of the inchoate infrafintech industry. 

Episode 1 – The almost right word – focuses on unpacking infrastructure as an asset class and the contours of infrastructure finance. 

It is critical that our three audiences share a common foundation of understanding. The venture capital industry, in particular, has tended not to have infrastructure finance in its opportunity set.  That's why we examine what infrastructure is and how the private sector has taken an increasingly expansive view of the asset class. 

Entrepreneurs and financiers of infrafintech solutions will need to pick and choose where along the financial value chain to concentrate. Therefore, we also explore infrastructure finance and ways founders can bucket their infrafintech solutions.

It’s easy to lose sight of what is at stake in the financing of large, complex infrastructure assets. We can become disconnected from the human element. In their pitches, founders of infrafintech solutions need to weave in what is at stake – the human element – to capture the imagination of the venture capital and corporate venture communities.

In episode 2, we delve into the challenges facing infrastructure finance to lay the groundwork for what infrafintech startups may pr