Duqu Secures €1.5M Pre-Seed to Scale AI-Powered Invoice Financing

Duqu has secured €1.5 million in pre-seed funding to scale its AI-powered invoice financing platform, targeting the liquidity gaps that often stifle business growth. For fintech professionals, the move highlights a shift toward high-velocity, automated credit assessments, as the firm begins licensing its proprietary underwriting engine to other financial services providers to streamline B2B lending.

What was announced

Duqu has successfully closed a €1.5 million pre-seed funding round, a significant capital injection aimed at expanding its AI-driven financing platform. The investment was led by Curiosity VC and No Such Ventures. The primary focus of this funding is to solve a pervasive liquidity challenge: the delay between service delivery and payment receipt. According to the company, many firms are currently forced to wait for periods of 30, 60, or even 90 days for their invoices to be settled, even as they face immediate operational costs and time-sensitive growth opportunities. Duqu’s platform addresses this by allowing businesses to access capital tied up in these outstanding invoices within a 24-hour window.

A critical feature of the service is that it enables companies to maintain their direct customer relationships, as the invoices are not sold outright to a third party. This model preserves the existing communication and trust between the business and its clients while providing the necessary liquidity. Since its launch three months ago, Duqu has demonstrated rapid market fit, processing over €5 million in financing applications and onboarding more than 1,450 customers. The company has reported that its monthly growth rates have consistently doubled during this initial period of operation. Central to Duqu’s operations is its proprietary AI underwriting engine, which currently automates approximately 95% of the credit assessment process. Beyond its own financing activities, Duqu is now making this underlying technology available to other financial services providers, moving beyond direct lending to become a technology vendor.

"The capital injection is designed to accelerate Duqu's mission to solve a common liquidity problem: businesses delivering work and sending invoices, only to wait 30, 60, or 90 days for payment while operational costs and growth opportunities persist."

A statement from Duqu.

The companies involved

Duqu is a fintech firm that specializes in AI-powered liquidity solutions for businesses. The company was founded by Diederik Nassenstein, Victor Brouwer, and Maas de Goede. Together, the founding team has developed a platform that targets the inefficiencies of traditional B2B payment cycles. By integrating artificial intelligence into the underwriting process, Duqu aims to provide a faster, more automated alternative to conventional invoice factoring and business loans. The company’s rapid growth since its launch three months ago suggests a strong demand for its specific model of non-disruptive invoice financing, which avoids the outright sale of invoices.

The funding round was led by Curiosity VC and No Such Ventures. Curiosity VC is an investment firm that typically focuses on early-stage software and AI companies that have the potential to transform their respective sectors. No Such Ventures, acting as a co-lead in this pre-seed round, provides the financial backing necessary for Duqu to transition from its initial launch phase into a more aggressive scaling period. Both investment firms are backing Duqu’s dual strategy of offering direct capital to businesses while also licensing its 95% automated underwriting engine to other players in the financial services market. This approach positions Duqu as both a lender and a technology provider within the fintech ecosystem, leveraging the expertise of its founders to refine its proprietary AI models.

What this means

The invoice financing market is undergoing a significant shift as AI-driven underwriting begins to replace manual credit checks. Duqu’s claim of 95% automation is a direct challenge to traditional lenders who struggle with the speed required by modern SMEs. By providing capital within 24 hours without requiring the outright sale of invoices, the company is tapping into a demand for non-dilutive, non-disruptive growth capital. However, the move to license its technology to other providers is perhaps the most telling aspect of this announcement. It suggests that the real value may lie not just in the lending itself, but in the efficiency of the assessment engine. As more fintechs move toward "Financing-as-a-Service," the pressure on traditional banks to modernize their own underwriting processes will only intensify. The sector must now consider whether proprietary AI models can maintain credit quality during periods of rapid, doubling growth.