In this live episode of the Connector Podcast recorded at the Digital Finance Summit 2022 in Brussels, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Vincent de Voer, co‑founder and CEO of Transition. Vincent explains that Transition helps organisations become future‑proof and resilient by scanning drivers of change with AI‑driven trend intelligence. He defines resilience as a combination of anticipation, agility and adaptability. The conversation covers how the COVID‑19 pandemic accelerated digital trends such as hybrid work, cashless payments and embedded insurance, and how these trends differ across regions and industries due to consumer behaviour and regulation. Vincent details the company’s core methodology: ingesting roughly half a million public data points daily (news, academic papers, patents, VC news, etc.), applying sentiment, emotion and pattern analysis, and linking trends to industries to produce dashboards that augment executive decision‑making. He shares recent milestones – a new funding round, international commercial scaling, and a “gimmick” where Transition used its own AI to predict its success. The discussion moves to the current funding climate, noting more conservative VC behaviour and the strategic choice to partner with Belgian investors. Vincent offers advice for other startups: build a solid local base before seeking global capital. He also highlights the emerging “decision‑intelligence” trend, claiming Transition can forecast trends better than Gartner. The interview wraps up with a look at the next six months, where Transition will focus on scaling its decision‑intelligence offering, and provides contact information (transition.eu, LinkedIn).
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen Vanderhoydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets. This episode is proudly sponsored by Fintech Belgium, the digital finance association by and for fintechs.
Live from the Digital Finance Summit 2022.
Hello, hello, and we're back with our podcast, live and kicking from Digital Finance Summit in Brussels. And I already had a few nice people to interview today, but now I've got Vincent with me. And Vincent has been one of the, the founding fathers of a company that identified trends, if I got that right. But not only that, he also won the contest last year. So could you tell me a little bit more about yourself?
Yeah, so thank you for having me, first of all. My name is indeed Vincent, Vincent de Voer. I'm co-founder and CEO of a company or startup called Transition.
Speaks for itself.
Yeah, indeed. And our company is all about helping companies becoming future-proof, becoming resilient, By scanning drivers of change, so scanning what's going on in the world and helping them anticipate what that means to them, so how they can mainly anticipate that change. So yeah, indeed, last year we were at DFS. It wasn't here, it was at another location, and we won the Coup de Cœur Award, so the jury award. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good memories on DFS.
Good memories, yeah. So that's nice. And I hear that you have to go back on stage to basically tell your story about what happened in the last year, right? So what happened in the last year? What are you going to tell to the audience?
A lot happened. If you're in the startup business, if nothing happens, you're not moving fast enough. So for us, a lot has happened. We have worked, of course, a lot on the product. So we're in an AI business, we need to train AI algorithms. We are working more on the process side of product management. So really listening to our customers to be able to give better value. We usually work for strategy teams, for innovation teams, for all kinds of teams which give advice to C-level or boardrooms. So it's really strategic insights that we're looking for. And that means that we really need to listen at that level, what that means and how AI can add value in that case. So that's on the product side. And otherwise, commercially, we're moving into different industries. We're not only linked to finance, so we're not only a fintech. We're basically industry agnostic. We can work for any industry. And we've actually raised funds. Um, it was officially launched a couple of weeks ago.
Congratulations.
Thank you, thank you. And this is more on scaling our business internationally from a commercial perspective. So this is what we will be doing the next year then and years to come.
A nice journey ahead.
Yes, indeed. It's a nice, exciting journey. So it's about scaling on all different axes, talent-wise, process-wise, product-wise. So a lot of challenges and opportunities coming our way.
But since you already know what the trend is, you will be fine, I'm sure.
Voilà, voilà. We actually have a small gimmick at the company. Before we launched, we used our own AI algorithms to be able to define whether our business would be successful.
I'm not going to ask the outcome. I think we all know.
I'm still here, so. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, today we have a talk about resilience, and it's kind of funny the way you use the word resilience in your introduction. To me, it sounded something like it's something happening in the future. You have to be resilient towards the future. But in all fairness, for me, resilience somehow came very close to me when thinking about what has happened in the past, because you're resilient to survive a situation.
Yeah.
So, I guess it's maybe a definition that could be put the way you want, but how would you define resilience?
Resilience to me is all about adaptability, all about agility, all about anticipation. And I think anticipation is the keyword here if you look at how we add value. So, being able to anticipate possible future scenarios will help you in the end become a resilient, agile company.
But when you looked at— sorry that I'll take you back in time a little bit. I mean, I feel that urge from you to go to look in the future, and I'm going to go back a little bit by having corona on the table, because I think that corona pushed a lot of banks to work remotely, to almost reinvent themselves. So, What have you noticed? Have you seen any differences between different banks and even different industries as how they anticipate this?
Yeah, first of all, these kinds of events like COVID, they're once in a lifetime if you're in the data business and scouting trends.
So it's the black swan, right?
It's actually a green rhino if you would look at it from a taxonomy perspective, but yeah, black swan is more known to people. So indeed, it's an event that happens without anticipating, or that you couldn't have anticipated, although something like a pandemic you could have anticipated. So, but to answer your question, yes, yes, we see, we actually saw a couple of things. First of all, during COVID a lot of companies asked us what will happen post-COVID, and then you saw a lot of buzz on remote working. Everybody will stay at home, nobody will come to the office anymore. Everything will happen in a hybrid way, and so on, and so on, and so on. But actually, we already saw that it was a— it was overhyped at that point in time. It wasn't really a durable trend. If you look at the how a trend evolves, we saw that in some cases it was just a lot of buzz that was created. And we, we already advised companies like the truth will be somewhere in the middle. It won't be all remote. It won't be all physical. will see that there will be hybrid models appearing more. And this is exactly what you see happening now.
Agreed.
We still work at home, we still go to the office, it's somewhere in the middle, but it's not full one way or the other. This is one thing. And maybe on the finance side then, what we saw actually was even more acceleration of digital channels. So, pushing towards digital payment, cashless payment has really accelerated the digital transformation programs of banks globally. Due to that changing consumer behavior. And even in insurance, which was typically not so digital, you see a lot going on with embedded insurance. So embedding insurance, digital insurance products into platforms, thinking from within an ecosystem where they supply insurance products to retailers in their platforms and so on. And especially in some parts in the world like Southeast Asia, has really accelerated that pace.
And why would that be a difference? Is that something that you also investigate or have a view on?
Yeah, well, from a trend dynamic perspective, it's always the same. You see that trends evolve differently in industries and in specific regions in the world, and it all comes down back to the consumer whose behavior is changing. So if you're in a context where you have a complete society who's really digital-minded, young people with no incumbent or less incumbent processes or companies, then you see a faster acceleration toward digital. And also, of course, legislation is a big decelerator or accelerator of that change.
Yeah. And then I guess when you come into South Asia, I mean, we all know in the financial world the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which is very progressive in terms of anticipation and collaboration with the industry. Yeah, it makes sense. So Yeah, Transantio— Transition. I always say that wrong, I guess.
With an E, yes. Transition.
Transition. Voilà. So, you identify trends, you do that by using big data, advanced analytics, AI, but can you tell us a little bit more about how does that work? And I'm not asking you to reveal the secret sauce, that's not what I'm saying, but I'm sure that the audience would be interested, like what... What are the mechanisms, what are the methods that you use to go about?
Yeah, so in the core capabilities, basically we monitor the internet. The idea is simple. If you monitor the internet, you have a pretty good idea of what's going on in the real-life world because they're like communicating barrels. Even the opposite around. If you look at— you can spot something on the internet who has an impact on the real-life world and vice versa. So that's the basic thing. Yeah, you think about Google, we monitor all kinds of publicly available data sources, a lot on news, but also academic, what's happening at universities, patent databases, startup news, VC news, a lot of industry news. So think about high volume of data, about half a million each day that we ingest into our engine. So news articles, this is one thing you need to be able to build your own Google, if you may. And then you need intelligence layers on top to be able to analyze all that data, understand what it's all about.
Mm-hmm.
and see the patterns.
Sentiment, emotions.
Sentiment, emotions, linking trends to industries, looking what companies are doing with that trend, looking at new disruption, what is going on. And you need to connect all these dots and patterns. And once you are able to do that in a continuous, high-volume way, you can build dashboards on top that really add value and, yeah, give better insights to all kinds of executives like strategy and innovation. So we won't replace really decision-making. We augment decision-making by taking away a lot of effort and time that they need to put into the research. We do that in a more efficient, automated way.
Yeah, it's like almost bringing them into the Matrix, right?
Yeah, yeah, indeed. Yeah, I sometimes say that my chief of science, he's Nemo because he looks like data, like it's really Matrix kind of code.
Yeah. So we're all going to go to your website and figure it out, right?
On the website, it's more digestible. digestible, so you find really interesting dashboards and insights that normal people like us can understand to be able to steer their business. Yeah, cool.
Hey, what always strikes me about identifying trends, I really love it. It's nice because it helps you indeed to make decisions, to view at the world, to put a position as a human being. But I've been speaking to trend watchers before and some say that because you know what's happening, you can also manipulate, you can also start building your own trends. Is that something that you also felt by being so close with all the data that you can alter the future?
I wouldn't say alter the future, we're not that big. But yeah, for sure, we can see data patterns and we can see similar things in similar industries. And we always call it like spillover effects, what happens in one industry might be interesting for another industry. So at that case, we can see really the hot topics across industry, within verticals, within specific trend domains. If every company in the world would use our insights, I could say yes, from a less ethical perspective, you could steer on what would happen. But of course, this is not what you want to do.
But that's why you're scaling, right?
Yeah. World domination is—
The next step on the agenda.
Of course.
Yeah, you earlier said that you recently got some fresh money, which I think in recent times it's literally an achievement, so therefore a well-meant congratulations. But did you feel that it's more difficult nowadays for a startup scale-up to get fresh funding into the company or not really?
On a personal level or on a transition level, yes, you see that VCs and other types of investment funds become more conservative and they think twice before they spend their money. Valuations are lower than it would used to be. You see less exits and so on and so on. So the market is slowing down and is, is really preparing for— is cooling off for the recession that might be, uh, short or long-term. Maybe we don't know. So you see that—
I was hoping that you would give me the answer.
Well, uh, from all this, I, I, uh, don't shoot me if it's in the wrong direction. But from all the signals that we're seeing, finance and country level, and, um, we anticipate that it won't be— that it won't be that long of a recession. So 1 year, 1 year and a half, 2 years, something like that.
Oh, that's a nice takeaway from all of us.
Yeah, but in the end, um, yeah, you see a cooling down of VC money, um, and, um, that's also why we chose for a stable Belgian partner where we know who will think with us, uh, the project, the next steps, and is not purely in it for a time x.
But is that not per definition a better way to do it? It's smart money, it's purposeful investment.
Yeah, for us it was a logical next step in the maturity that we have, but I sometimes see, I don't know if it's a mistake, but you see startups really looking too fast at external money. So really US-based, UK-based, all kinds of global money, because there are a lot of incentives out there, right? If you're a startup and you do stuff that they find interesting, they basically come to you. So, you need to be really careful about that, and you really need to choose your best partner for the phase of your startup that you're in.
Would that be one of your lessons that you would say to other startups that are more earlier in the process than yourself, or are there any other lessons to learn?
No, I think that's a good lesson, especially if you're a Belgium startup. For me, it's like, let's be chauvinistic here. There is money in Belgium, there are good VCs, there is other type of money available in Belgium. Why look externally? Do it with Belgian partners, with the Belgian ecosystem, so that you can thrive and have impact on a Belgian level too. So we really feel strong, as, as with all the founders. I'm not the only founder. that this is the best way forward in a globalized world, of course.
Yeah, we'll give you also a solid base, and I think a solid base is probably the best place to start your scaling.
Voilà, voilà, indeed. Especially if you see, hey, the recession coming, or with some parts that will slow down on investments, a solid base is what you want to have. And And yeah.
And maybe last question, you talked about, and I really like that gimmick that you did some trend watching on your own success. And what was in the white big glass bowl? How could you see that? What was the next steps in the next couple, 6 months, for example?
The next 6 months, it was back a couple of years ago. So, what we saw was that the business that we're in is basically the Decision intelligence, AI-driven intelligence, all kinds of intelligence where AI can can add value. Yeah, we saw an emerging trend. We saw something that wasn't really mature yet. It was like first signals, weak signals of something going on. But we saw on a global scale that this was really picking up speed and and and and and this is exactly what we've seen the last couple of years. You see all these startups appearing within that space. I think even from Gartner, it's like their 2023, one of their biggest strategic tech trends, decision intelligence. So yeah, another gimmick is that we once did a competition, Gartner versus Transition, because they have their hype cycle. And we ended at 0-10 for Transition because we could make better forecasts and better predictions about trends than Gartner.
I think that's leaving our conversation with a blast. So if people, the listeners, like to know more about you and your company, where do they go?
Well, they go to our website transition.eu with an E, and there they can find everything. Or of course, follow us on LinkedIn and—
Cool.
To stay up to date on the daily stuff.
And maybe one last more thing. What did you like, the conference so far?
Yes, yes, I had a couple of good keynotes. I was myself in a panel discussion on resilience.
Brilliant.
I'm now going to see some other peers on the pitch battles. And yeah, DFS is always like the place to be in Belgium if you're in finance and digital finance.
Yeah, good, good. Nice to hear that. I'm sure that DFS would like that too, and our Belgian fintech guys and girls. Vincent, many thanks for your participation. It was a great conversation about resilience, about your company, about trends and the future of the company. So thank you very much again. Also, thank you very much to all the audience, obviously also Belgium FinTech. And please stay tuned because there's more of this nice conversations that we will share on our podcast channel. Thank you very much.
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