Two Amsterdam funds have backed a plan to shorten the wait between finishing work and getting paid. Duqu collected €1.5M in pre-seed money from Curiosity VC and No Such Ventures.
The company advances money against outstanding B2B invoices within 24 hours, with no minimum or maximum ticket and no factoring arrangement. Customers pay a fee when they draw on the facility.
Underwriting is the hinge. Duqu spent a year and a half training an engine that handles 95% of credit assessment on its own – the step that renders small invoices uneconomic for conventional lenders. Because the engine is modular, banks, lenders and leasing companies can license it white-label.
The gap is measurable. Atradius’ payment practices research puts the share of overdue B2B invoices in Western Europe at about 47%, which leaves small firms waiting on cash they have already earned.
Early traction, per the company: north of €4.5M of applications handled and more than €1M advanced during the platform’s first three months of operation.
Whether the model travels beyond the Netherlands will depend on how quickly the engine adapts to unfamiliar invoice formats and payment cultures in its next markets.
