Dimebox, a Dutch fintech company based in Amsterdam, has earned a spot in the finals of the EIT Digital Challenge, the largest scaleup competition in Europe. Over 200 companies enrolled for the challenge, and only the top 25 scaleups advanced through to the finals on the 18th of October in Brussels. There they will pitch to win the title of Best Scaleup of Europe and take home the main price worth €100.000. Also appearing in the finals is the Dutch company Active Cues with their residential care innovation Tovertafel.
The EIT Digital Challenge is a European competition that aims to identify the best deep tech innovators of Europe. The 25 finalists are based in eleven European countries and have been selected out of 200 applicants. The finalists, who are startups that are currently in a growth phase, on average employ 38 people, made €1.2 million in revenue in 2017 and received €4.2 million in funding.
Prize package
Nine Dutch companies have applied in one of the categories Digital Wellbeing, Digital Infrastructure, Digital Finance, Digital Industry and Digital Cities. Winners will be announced in each category, bringing the total prize package amount to €750.000. The two top companies in each category win a whole year of growth support from the EIT Digital Accelerator team. Additionally, each category winner receives a prize of €50.000.
Dimebox
Dimebox is a contender for first place in the Digital Finance category because of their 
innovative payment platform that financial institutions can use as a white label product for all their ecommerce needs. “The advantage for such entities is that operating a single platform allows them to cut out a string of middlemen in the value chain, saving them a huge amount of costs.” says Thomas van Til, Head of Marketing and Communications.
Van Til states that Dimebox is very happy to be in the finals. “As a scaleup of 35 people we are actively searching for opportunities to present ourselves, which are often difficult to find. The EIT Digital Challenge is a very relevant stage to showcase our company.
That’s the reason we applied, not just to win. But now that we are at this stage, we hope to win the assistance of the EIT Digital Accelerator to expand into new international markets.”
Dimebox previously came in second place for the NRC Fintech Award, a process during which the company learned much from the feedback they received, says van Til. “We have a complex product and it can be challenging to convey the full scope of our story. We’ve improved our pitch since then, which makes us very excited to have reached the finals in this European competition.”
In the finals, Dimebox will compete against two German, one British and one Irish scaleup.
Germany-based Fino Digital makes intelligent bank account analysis software and account switching services. IDNow, also from Germany, uses video identification and e-signing as a solution for identity verification and accepting new clients. British Kasko wants to help innovative insurance companies by offering an insurance platform based on an API with which insurance companies can digitally design and manage digital insurance products. Leveris from Ireland created a core banking platform to speed up financial servicing for banks.
Dominik Krabbe, EIT Digital Challenge Lead, is very pleased with the selection of finalists: “We are happy with the diversity and quality of the finalists. I’m personally very excited to hear the pitch from Dimebox.” Active Cues is another Dutch company that competes for the main prize in the category Digital Wellbeing. With Tovertafel, a serious game, this scaleup tries to create moments of joy for people facing physical and mental challenges.
The winners of each category will be announced during the finals in Brussels on October 18th.
About EIT Digital
EIT Digital is a European organization for education, innovation and acceleration. The goal is to improve the economic growth and quality of life in Europe through digital technological innovation and education. This is achieved by integrating education, research and entrepreneurship, and a pan-European collaboration with 156 European companies, SMEs, startups, universities and research institutes. This approach allows EIT Digital to introduce groundbreaking digital innovations to the market and educate the leaders of the future.
EIT Digital is a ‘Knowledge and Innovation Community’ of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.
About Dimebox
Dimebox is the payment technology provider of the future, offering payment solutions through one platform and a single API. They are the only provider of a full-stack acquiring solution that is completely white label and flexible enough to embrace new payment methods and innovations quickly and effortlessly.
Dimebox goes beyond payment processing by offering their clients a modular and white label PaaS solution which includes fully integrated risk and fraud management, chargeback automation and billing & settlement capabilities enriched with smart data analytics. The result is a powerful end-to-end processing solution enabling real-time decision-making throughout the entire payments value chain. With offices in Amsterdam and Brisbane, Dimebox provides clients from all over the world with solid and innovative payment technology.
