Shows advisers what an ESG fund really owns, using assured company data
TL;DR Fundlook is a research tool for fee-only advisers and wealth desks whose clients ask for sustainable funds. Load any ESG-labelled fund and it shows, company by company, the emissions, water, waste and safety figures each holding filed and had assured. It gives no score and no verdict. Advisers pay a yearly subscription.
If you want a sustainable fund in India you mostly have to trust a label, and labels lean on ESG ratings. Those ratings are all over the place. Across six major raters, pairwise correlations run from 0.38 to 0.71, and more than half the gap comes from raters measuring the same thing differently[1]. So the same fund can look green or grey depending on whose scores it picks.
Meanwhile, better raw material already exists. India's top 1,000 listed companies have to file a Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report[2], and SEBI's 2023 framework puts a core set of those figures under reasonable assurance, phased in by market cap[3]. Few advisers have the time to read hundreds of these filings just to check one fund.
What it does, in regulatory terms: a data and research tool that shows published facts, with no rating, ranking or recommendation. SEBI treats any product marketed as an opinion on a company's ESG profile, issued on a scale of rating categories, as an ESG rating, and that needs certification[4]. Fundlook stays away from grades, scores and buy or sell calls. Confirm the line with securities counsel, including under the research analyst rules.
An adviser picks a fund. Fundlook reads its latest disclosed portfolio and matches each holding to that company's BRSR and BRSR Core filings. Software pulls the figures out of the filings and an analyst checks any that look odd. The adviser sees a table of greenhouse gas intensity, water use, waste, workplace safety and gender pay data, along with whether each figure was assured. Holdings with no filing get flagged as gaps, not penalised, and two funds can be compared side by side.
The original idea had AI judging which investments are truly sustainable. That judgement is a rating under SEBI's rules[4]. Showing assured facts lets the adviser and client decide for themselves, and it keeps the startup out of the rating business.
The user is a fee-only investment adviser, a private-bank relationship team or a family-office analyst. They pay because clients ask whether a sustainable fund is what it claims to be, and the adviser's name is on the answer. I found no public Indian price for ESG data subscriptions, so a flat yearly fee per adviser seat is my assumption. Fund houses could license it later for their own ESG reporting.
BRSR Core assurance expands every year under SEBI's 2023 glide path, from the top 150 companies in FY 2023-24 to the top 1,000 in FY 2026-27[3]. That means more holdings carry assured figures each year. SEBI's ESG rating provider rules also draw a clear line around ratings[4], which makes a no-rating data tool easier to define.
There's no public figure for ESG fund-research spending in India. The firmest countable base is the 1,000 listed companies that have to file BRSR[2], whose figures the tool reads. Abroad, one global sustainability-data vendor says it covers more than 450,000 funds worldwide for asset and wealth managers[5], which shows the fund-level demand exists out there. Treat that as context and not your market.
One ESG rater owned by a domestic ratings group describes itself as a Category 1 rater registered with SEBI and sells platform subscriptions[6]. It sells ratings though, which is the opposite of what an adviser who wants raw facts needs. Global data vendors offer fund-level sustainability data globally, but it's priced and built for big institutions[5]. I found no Indian tool that shows advisers a fund's holdings against assured BRSR Core figures.
| Difficulty | Moderate (40/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹50–95 L |
| Time to launch | 5–8 months |
Reading BRSR filings at scale is the main technical work, because formats vary and units get mixed up. Matching fund portfolios to companies needs clean data every month. The quieter difficulty is discipline - every feature request for "just a simple score" nudges you toward a regulated rating, and those requests will keep coming.
You can launch without a licence only if the product shows facts and never rates, so get that line confirmed before launch.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI turn the data into a score. That's the line SEBI draws for ESG ratings, and an unchecked extraction error would land in front of advisers.
Want to work out the AI layer for Fundlook? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
It's a reasonable build if you have equity research or ESG data experience and you're happy selling facts rather than opinions. If you're set on building a rating brand then skip it. Prove first that 30 advisers will pay for a fund comparison, and that extraction from BRSR filings is accurate on at least 98% of checked figures.
My estimate is ₹50–95 L to launch, mostly the extraction pipeline, analyst checks and a year of selling to advisers. The kit has the detail.
Not if you only show published facts. Issuing ESG ratings needs a SEBI certificate, and buy or sell calls need adviser or research analyst registration, so confirm the line with counsel.
Yes, if listed companies there publish comparable sustainability filings. Rules on what counts as an ESG rating differ, so check with your own securities regulator.
The free Fundlook validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the SEBI rating and research-rules checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for advisers and wealth desks, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Fundlook or something close to it? The make-or-break work is keeping the product useful without drifting into a regulated rating, and I'm glad to help you figure out where that line sits for you. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.