06 Feb Free is not enough, Open is the thing
Interview met Jeroen Volk - InvoiceSharing
InvoiceSharing is seated on the 29th Floor of the Millennium Tower in the centre of Rotterdam. When leaving the elevator it immediately is clear that InvoiceSharing is no longer a subsidiary of TBlox. Their entrances are splitted and without some background information visitors can’t know that InvoiceSharing is a former spinoff of TBlox.
InvoiceSharing is a free electronic invoice distribution platform. InvoiceSharing is very recently nominated as one of the 50 European Fintech companies to watch in 2015, the so called Fintech50 2015. These 50 companies are selected by an expert panel of the London based FinTech City. In 2014 InvoiceSharing was one the ten selected startups by Startupbootcamp Fintech London.
Openness is key
Jeroen Volk explains that the independency of InvoiceSharing was an absolute must in order to build a truly open distribution platform to share invoices. “Delivering free services and products helps to get your first customers, but openness, being able to connect every supplier to every customer is key in developing a distribution platform.”
TBlox offers ERP business software. InvoiceSharing can link with every ERP system, including the competitors of TBlox. To expand the business of InvoiceSharing it became clear that is wasn’t enough to build an exclusive platform for a closed group of clients regardless of how well this platform was designed. Jeroen and his business partner Vincent Prooij faced the reality that they had to untwine InvoiceSharing from the activities of TBlox. So after a long career at TBlox, they now work fully independent with a team of six other co-workers for InvoiceSharing.
We are expert in building interfaces
Volk describes that it took them about 1,5 year to be able to explain in just one sentence what InvoiceSharing is: a free electronic invoice distribution platform. “Distribution is the keyword in our proposition. We can distribute every invoice, no matter in what system it is originated. We are an expert in building interfaces. By focusing on this aspect we finally could make clear to electronic invoicing platforms that we weren’t their competitors but that we in fact are an additional service to the services they deliver.”
InvoiceSharing does however more than just distributing invoices. One of the free services is that invoices can be fixed and validated. For example, the software of InvoiceSharing can check if the VAT number fits with the company named as sender on the invoice. It is also possible to have validations based on the companies own procedures. All these kind of services makes the company more in control of the invoice process. “In the end, it is all about optimization of the cash flow, reduction of costs and growth in revenues”, explains Volk.
Partnerships
InvoiceSharing partners with different suppliers for a number of paid, additional services like reporting tools and cash planning tools. There are also branded versions of InvoiceSharing available, especially of interest for the larger financial institutions that want to service their clients with the process of invoicing and in the end, of course, want to help them with debtor financing and defining the optimal line of credit.
Rabobank already announced that it will use the technology of InvoiceSharing. To be specific, Rabobank has a strategic partnership with Facturis, and it turned out that the technology of InvoiceSharing was the missing link in this partnership. This underlines the philosophy of InvoiceSharing that it is important to focus on excellence in what is the core of your business and to partner with others for additional services.
Being part of an ecosystem
In the coming year InvoiceSharing needs to become profitable. “To be able to grow we also need venture capital. We want more partnerships with ERP system companies in different countries. We noticed these ERP system companies became the largest advocates of our services. This helps use in becoming the standard for distribution”.
Volk is convinced that being part of an ecosystem that connects you with other people is one of the success factors in doing business. He especially experienced this when participating in the accelerator program of Startupbootcamp FinTech London. “The ecosystem in London is very strong, in the Netherlands we don’t take startups as serious as in London. A initiative like Holland FinTech is very helpful in strengthening the Dutch ecosystem for startups.”
Interview by Carlien Roodink - Partner Holland FinTech
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