Accenture makes ‘strategic investment’ in Arabesque’s S-Ray

ESG data and analytics firm Arabesque S-Ray has secured another investor – this time in professional services company Accenture. 

The German firm already counts the State of Hessen, Allianz, DWS and Commerzbank among its owners, but now Accenture has made what it described as a “strategic investment” in the company, the terms of which it did not disclose.

As part of the deal, Accenture will gain full access to all of Arabesque’s tools, data and metrics. Arabesque uses machine learning to provide ESG scores based on ESG metrics and media analysis.

It’s not the first partnership between the two companies: in 2018, Accenture used Arabesque data to develop its ‘Bottom Line on Trust’, which scored 7,000 companies on ‘trust’. 

As part of the new partnership, the pair will develop new tools and methods for analysing ESG data together.

Last month, Arabesque announced that Daniel Klier, former Head of Sustainable Finance at HSBC, would become CEO of Arabesque S-Ray in June. He replaces Andreas Feiner, who left to set up a company focused on “nature-based solutions”.  

The firm said at the time that Klier would “lead the expansion of Arabesque S-Ray’s ESG data, advisory and research services worldwide” and was one of a number of big hires coming up. 

In 2019, the German State of Hessen joined up with Allianz X, an investment arm of the insurer Allianz, Commerz Real, a subsidiary of banking group Commerzbank, and DWS, the former Deutsche Asset Management, to acquire a $20m stake in Arabesque S-Ray. 

Accenture has made a number of other “strategic investments” in tech companies recently, including in communications platform Synadia Communications and data compliance firm InCountry in July and September 2020.