Ruud van der Kruk, Ynze Sipkema, and Jelke Jansen have known each other since they were nineteen. They studied together, built their first software together, and sold their first company together. In June 2023, they launched their growing software group (which they had been building since 2021) under a new name: Blinqx.
Three years later, “their” Blinqx ranks among the top 5 B2B software companies in the Benelux, with more than 700 employees and an ambition that’s becoming less and less of a secret. We checked in again with the three founders to talk about collaborative entrepreneurship and what AI is really changing.
- You’ve been running your business together for more than fifteen years. How does that actually work?
- Blinqx is now among the top 5 B2B software companies in the Benelux. When did you realize how quickly things had moved?
- The Benelux’s AI frontrunner. How do you plan to achieve that goal?
- With 700 people, it’s certainly a different challenge to make everyone feel like they’re part of your vision. How do you keep the entrepreneurial culture you started with intact?
- Blinqx seems to be growing effortlessly. What, in practice, is more difficult than it looks?
- What will the industry look like in three years, and what role will Blinqx play in it?
You’ve been running your business together for more than fifteen years. How does that actually work?
Ruud: It was never really a conscious choice. We were studying together, saw the same problem, and started building. It was that simple. And it’s always worked well because we each have our own strengths. I’m more of a connector; Ynze builds; Jelke keeps an eye on things. We never agreed on that—it just turned out that way.
Ynze: In our role as founders, we don’t have any strict agreements about who does what. That might sound reckless, but it works because there’s just trust. Right from the start.
Jelke: Compared to three years ago, we do talk a lot less outside of work about everything that’s going on at Blinqx.
In those early years, the three of us made every decision together.
That hasn’t been the case for quite some time now. It’s a logical consequence of the growth. It’s actually happening very naturally.
Blinqx is now among the top 5 B2B software companies in the Benelux. When did you realize how quickly things had moved?
Ruud: It doesn’t really sink in until people from outside the industry start pointing it out. You’re just focused on your work. You see the next step, the next acquisition, the next product. But at some point, you do notice: you’re sitting at the table with parties who take you seriously as a key player in the industry, not just as a promising challenger. That feels different.
But making the top 5 isn’t the goal. It’s just a waypoint. By 2027, we want to be the leader in how professionals in our—largely regulated—sectors use AI in their core processes. Not just one of the winners. THE winner. That might sound arrogant, but I believe in it.
Jelke: And it’s achievable. We’re the youngest of those top 5, and the fastest-growing. When a market shifts the way it’s doing now with Agentic, that’s exactly where you want to be: big enough to invest, yet agile enough to adapt quickly.
The Benelux’s AI frontrunner. How do you plan to achieve that goal?
Ruud: We operate in industries where professionals work with sensitive data every day, face strict regulations, and must meet high reliability standards. An insurance advisor, a lawyer, a mortgage advisor—they can’t afford to make mistakes. That makes our market challenging, but the domain expertise we have in-house also makes us hard to replicate. You can’t build in a weekend what we’ve spent years developing—our deep understanding of our users’ core processes.
Ynze: What sets us apart is that we don’t just layer AI on top of our software. We embed it at the core. Qore is our shared AI engine for all Blinqx companies. It’s scalable enough for all the sectors we serve and smart enough to be tailored to each sector. One foundation, multiple applications. That’s what makes our pace possible.
Ruud: And we’re just “getting things done.” Where are our users already benefiting RIGHT NOW, as we work toward the new way of working? Consider speech-to-text for insurance brokers, where a one-hour risk assessment has been reduced to 15 minutes—with higher quality. Claim assessment from start to finish without manual intervention. KYC document processing for accountants. Products that customers use every day.
With 700 people, it’s certainly a different challenge to make everyone feel like they’re part of your vision. How do you keep the entrepreneurial culture you started with intact?
Ruud: By giving people space and not being too hard on them when changes happen. We ask a lot of our team. The pace is fast, and things are constantly changing given how quickly we’re growing. But no one here is too proud to roll up their sleeves and help each other move forward.
Ynze: That’s also important when adopting our AI-first approach. You have a few “frontrunners” who get started and bring the rest along with them. Once people start to see tangible results—once they see that an agent is taking over a task they don’t enjoy doing themselves, and they have more time for the parts of their job they enjoy—they’ll want to take it further on their own. Then you don’t have to convince people to change the way they work; they’ll see it for themselves.
Ruud: People who can’t work with AI will be left behind by those who can. Our goal is precisely to help everyone take that step—not just our tech experts and developers, but everyone. That’s how we keep the entrepreneurial spirit and curiosity alive in everyone.
Blinqx seems to be growing effortlessly. What, in practice, is more difficult than it looks?
Ruud: For me, it’s the complexity of managing without losing our entrepreneurial spirit. In a very short time, we’ve brought together many companies, many sectors, and many people. The risk is that you start centralizing to maintain control, and in doing so, you undermine the very thing that makes the companies strong. For me, maintaining that balance means making trade-offs every single day.
Jelke: And sometimes we’re just a little too optimistic when it comes to estimating how long things will take. That’s just part of it—that’s entrepreneurship, too. We think, “It’ll work out.” And it does work out, but not always as easily as we’d assumed, haha.
Ruud: We do keep that in mind to some extent.
For me, speed always comes before perfection.
You don’t set your plans in stone, because things might be different in three months. I think that’s a strength of our culture.
What will the industry look like in three years, and what role will Blinqx play in it?
Ruud: The workplace for business and financial service providers will look fundamentally different in three years. Today, you log in, open a file, gather information from ten tabs, and write a recommendation (with the help of AI). You’re the linchpin. In three years, you’ll log in and the platform will have already done part of the work. Documents will have been processed, relevant changes flagged, and a draft recommendation will be ready. You’ll review and finalize it. By then, Blinqx will be the platform on which business and financial service providers in the Benelux work. Not as software alongside their work, but as the workplace itself. We’re building that now, under the name WorQX.
Ynze: We see that fragmentation remains the biggest obstacle to our users’ productivity today. An advisor switches between applications hundreds of times a day. What we’re building with WorQX brings customer contact, case files, and administration together in a single context. Users no longer switch between tools, but between tasks—all within the same work environment. And agents aren’t just a button on the side; they’re integrated into the workflow. They prepare, identify issues, collaborate with you, and take action on their own based on that collaboration.
Ruud: That last point only works if you understand the industry from the inside. A generic AI provider can build a nice interface. But it doesn’t know what a mortgage advisor needs when it really matters. It doesn’t know the decision trees, the compliance logic, or the implicit knowledge of how a risk assessment conversation unfolds. We do. We’ve built that up through years of industry experience. That’s the foundation on which we make a difference.
Jelke: And in three years, the service provider itself will be happy with this new way of working. Less paperwork, more time for the customer. That’s what counts.
