Jouk Pleiter, founder of Backbase, has won the Dutch award for best online entrepreneur, the LOEY Award. Danique Wiltink, founder of the private tutor startup Nimbles, has won the LOEY Talent Award in the presence of special guest of honour Queen Maxima.
Jouk Pleiter, previously founded a software content managment system called Tridion late 1990. He grew the company to a turnover of 20 miljoen euros in just 5 years. Pleiter is however applauded with this prize for is his accomplisments with his company Backbase that he founded in 2003 and specially his ability to make big turn around or pivots if you will in the face of fierce competition or near obsolesce. After making the last pivot Backbase has now grown into the marketleader in digital engagement software for the financial industry. The company now serves 80 big financial institutions. HSBC, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, ABN AMRO en Deutsche Bank use Backbase software as the base technology for their digital transformation efforts. The company employees 600 people across offices in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boise, Cardiff, Londen en Singapore.
Celebrate and encourage inspiring entrepreneurship
The award for up and coming and inspiring entrepreneur, the LOEY Talent Award, went to Danique Wiltink of the tutoring platform Nimbles. Nimbles is a spin off from her other business, Didactique. Nimbles will roll out over the Netherlands this summer.
The LOEY Award was initiated in 2010 by the venture capital firms Van den Ende & Deitmers and Peak Capital. In contrast to other awards where the focus is on the company or idea or innovation the focus of the LOEY Award is on the entrepreneur. The thesis was to celebrate those that have the courage to start something new and encourage others to start their own online company said former chairman of the LOEY award Patrick Kerssemakers in a previous interview with StartupJuncture.
‘Big-companies-behavior’
“Jouk has been able to make a radical change of the businessmodel of Backbase in the face of changing market circumstances. The focus of Jouk on the right businessmodel and the agile startup culture of his company where there is no room for internal politics and ‘big-companies-behavior’ is indicative of his style of entrepreneurship”, says jury chairperson Daniel Ropers. Adding: “He shows in an impressive way that online entrepreneurship doesn’t only have a big impact on customer experience, but has also become an invaluable part of the core of internal business process in a range of industries.”
The Loey Award has over the years commemorated Dutch online entrepreneurs like Rogier Thewessen (YoungCapital), Steven Schuurman (Elastic), Pieter Zwart (Coolblue) and Bas Beerens (WeTransfer).
Photo Credit: LOEY Foundation
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