Duqu’s €1.5M Bet on Faster Invoice Cash and AI Underwriting

Amsterdam-based fintech Duqu has raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding from Curiosity VC and No Such Ventures. It plans to grow a working-capital platform that advances cash against outstanding B2B invoices, alongside the AI technology it uses to assess credit. The available reporting does not specify how the funding will be divided between those efforts. 3

Turning unpaid invoices into working capital

Duqu’s service is designed for the gap between issuing an invoice and receiving payment. It assesses an outstanding B2B invoice and offers a short-term advance, so a business can access cash tied up in work it has already billed for. That can help it meet current costs or pursue a growth opportunity without waiting for the customer’s payment cycle; it does not make the customer pay sooner. 35

Duqu says 46% of Dutch B2B invoices are paid after their due date. That figure is a company claim, not an independently verified measure in the supplied reporting. Its significance is straightforward: expenses such as salaries and inventory can fall due while invoice revenue remains outstanding, leaving less cash available for marketing or hiring. 6

How the advance differs from factoring

Reporting on Duqu says customers retain ownership of their invoices and control of their customer relationships rather than selling the invoices to a factoring provider. It also reports access to funds within 24 hours; another account says transfers are often made within an hour of approval. Those are reported service speeds, not a guarantee for every application. 56

Claims that Duqu has no minimum or maximum advance amount and charges fees only when an advance is used are not substantiated by the supplied source excerpts. Businesses evaluating the service would need to confirm those terms directly rather than assume that an advertised absence of limits means unlimited credit.

A second use for Duqu’s underwriting technology

Alongside advances, Duqu is developing AI-powered underwriting as part of its platform. One supplied account says the engine automates about 95% of credit assessment, but that performance figure is reported rather than independently tested here. 38

The broader plan described in the source material is to offer the technology to other finance providers through a white-label model. That would extend Duqu’s business beyond funding invoices itself. The supplied excerpts do not establish which institutions use the technology, how they apply their own credit policies, or whether the reported automation rate holds across different lenders’ applications. 78

For co-founder Maas de Goede, the growth argument is that a business may have earned revenue yet be unable to use it for weeks. Duqu’s two-part strategy addresses that timing problem directly through advances and, potentially, through underwriting tools used by other providers. The funding supports that direction, while the detailed commercial terms and technology claims still warrant verification. 358