GoDutch, a Netherlands-based financial services startup, has raised EUR 3.6 million in seed funding from Luxembourg Finance House and QuantumLeap Capital, as the company pushes an AI-led business account designed to automate the most time-consuming parts of SME finance administration.
The round stands out in a market where investors have become more selective on early-stage fintech, especially models that compete head-on with incumbent banks. GoDutch is taking the opposite route: bundling banking with accounting-grade automation and positioning itself as an operating layer for day-to-day business finance.
A compressed funding timeline
Founded in June 2024, GoDutch has moved quickly from formation to institutional backing. The company raised EUR 1.2 million in a pre-seed round by May 2025 and followed with the EUR 3.6 million seed round by December 2025. The rapid progression, within roughly 18 months of founding, reflects early conviction in both execution and product direction.
Investor Mike de Boer has pointed to founder Thomas Vles’s ability to assemble a strong group of advisers, investors and early users in a short period as a key credibility driver behind the early rounds.
Banking proposition built around automation
GoDutch’s core pitch is a full business account combined with workflow tools that reduce the manual effort typically split across banks, expense tools and accounting platforms. Alongside team cards and expense management, the platform includes automated accounts payable and receivable, payroll and lending features.
The differentiator is automation that aims to remove the reconciliation burden that sits between payments and accounting. GoDutch uses AI to automatically link uploaded receipts to transactions and retrieve missing invoices. It also integrates with major Dutch accounting programs and enriches payment data with VAT and ledger accounts. The company says this can save accountants up to 70% of reconciliation time.
Operationally, the company is already scaling: GoDutch officially launched in late 2025 and employs around 18 people.
Why this is an against-trend bet
Early-stage fintech funding has increasingly favoured infrastructure, compliance, and B2B software-like revenue profiles rather than direct challengers to traditional banking. GoDutch’s strategy cuts across that caution by explicitly challenging the bank relationship for SMEs.
The investment case, however, is clear: if automation meaningfully reduces back-office work, the value proposition shifts from “another business account” to “a measurable productivity gain.” That framing supports stronger retention and a more defensible wedge than pricing alone.
The main risk is execution complexity. Building a regulated business account while delivering reliable, accounting-grade automation requires tight product focus, robust integrations and operational discipline. GoDutch’s decision to bundle multiple finance functions increases the surface area, but it also increases the potential to become the primary system SMEs use daily.
What to watch next
Near-term momentum will be judged on three indicators: adoption among SMEs, pull-through from accountants and bookkeeping partners, and the reliability of automation at scale. If GoDutch can prove that fast onboarding and high-quality transaction enrichment are repeatable across customer segments, the company will be well-positioned to expand its footprint beyond the Netherlands.
For now, Luxembourg Finance House and QuantumLeap Capital are backing a thesis that fintech winners will be those that turn banking into a workflow product, not just a balance-sheet product.