LOQR is a Portuguese deep tech company providing end-to-end digital transformation journeys for banks and financial institutions. As a member of our Digital Security & Trust group, LOQR ensures seamless, white-label experiences from customer onboarding to full lifecycle management, all built on a foundation of digital trust, compliance, and automation. 

We spoke to the company’s founder and CEO Ricardo Costa, about the company’s own transformational journey from overcoming significant regulatory hurdles to securing 80% of the Portuguese market and achieving the rare LINCE Qualification for automation.

The "ready-to-eat cake" for financial institutions

With its strengths in digital trust, compliance, and automation, LOQR helps financial institutions, especially traditional or legacy banks, to go fully digital. The company stands out by offering complete, ready-to-deploy digital workflows to banks, rather than just individual tools like KYC, AML, or authentication modules. Unlike typical “tool aggregators,” LOQR delivers end-to-end digital journeys – covering everything from customer onboarding to authentication, consent, document signing, and full lifecycle management.

The company’s core philosophy is to provide banks with a “ready-to-eat cake” rather than just the “ingredients” and a recipe. In other words, LOQR manages the entire digitalization process: from the moment a customer initiates an action on a bank’s website to the final confirmation email.

LOQR operates entirely as a white-label solution, meaning its brand is never visible to end users. Customers interacting with the platform believe they are engaging directly with the bank, not a third-party provider – ensuring a flawless branded experience for LOQR's clients.

The company’s core platforms are LOQR|one, tailored for institutions with lighter compliance needs, and LOQR|core, a full-featured solution for larger banks requiring robust compliance and security. As part of its growth strategy, LOQR recently launched LOQR|sign, a qualified electronic signature solution designed to address gaps in the market with a simple, compliant approach.

From AI roots to a full-spectrum team

LOQR was founded in 2015 with a strong technological foundation. The founding team, including Ricardo, who holds a PhD in artificial intelligence, focused on creating user-friendly technology. With time, the company expanded beyond its technical roots to include key expertise in finance, operations, and business strategy. Marisa Leitão, Head of Finance and People, joined to strengthen the company's financial management and sustainability. 

Over time, some of the original founders moved on – a natural progression for a company over a decade old. Tiago Ferreira, Head of Technology, and José Martins, Head of Product and Delivery, continued to lead on the technology and delivery fronts. While one part of the company focuses on building the platform, the "delivery" team ensures that customer-facing solutions are secure, compliant, scalable, and tailored to real-world needs – not just those imagined by engineers. LOQR currently has a team of 33 people and operates as a remote-first company, with its headquarters located in northern Portugal.

Overcoming regulatory labyrinths and other challenges

In its early years, LOQR faced significant hurdles in entering the banking sector. To even be considered by banks, the company had to meet extensive regulatory requirements and obtain multiple certifications – a process that took two to three years. Once the first client was secured, the path became smoother, with existing clients helping build trust and credibility.

Serving banks means ensuring the platform complies with a wide range of strict regulatory requirements – from the European Commission, the European Banking Authority, and individual national central banks. Each country often interprets and implements EU regulations slightly differently, requiring LOQR to adapt its platform accordingly. In addition to understanding and applying these regulations, the company has also had to obtain multiple certifications to prove compliance and build trust with its clients.

Another major challenge was the long sales cycles typical in the banking industry, often taking 12 to 18 months. However, this effort paid off: LOQR now serves around 80% of the Portuguese market, with a strong client base and minimal churn.

The remaining challenge is international expansion. Despite success in Portugal, LOQR continues to face difficulties breaking into other European markets such as Spain, France, Italy, and Germany – a challenge the company is actively working to overcome. This is something where, Ricardo hopes, EIC Scaling Club membership can help.

LOQR’s milestones: from first client to breakthrough automation with LINCE qualification

After two years focused on meeting regulatory and certification requirements, LOQR’s first major milestone was securing its first client. Another key achievement came with onboarding its first large bank in the Iberian market. Working with a major financial institution introduced new challenges and stricter requirements, which pushed LOQR to refine its internal processes and elevate its service quality – benefiting not just that client, but the entire client base.

LOQR became the first Portuguese company to obtain LINCE Qualification, a rare and highly demanding certification held by only a few organizations across Europe. The certification process took three to four years and marked a significant milestone for the company. Achieving LINCE enabled LOQR to increase automation within its platform, allowing many workflows and digital journeys to run without human intervention – something not previously permitted. This advancement has greatly improved the scalability and efficiency of its services.

Building on this foundation, LOQR is now launching new products like LOQR|sign, along with other platform enhancements aimed at delivering a better, more innovative user experience. These developments represent another key milestone in the company’s growth and commitment to pushing the boundaries of digital transformation in the financial sector.

How EIC Scaling Club supports LOQR's European ambitions

LOQR remains focused on becoming a cash-positive company, maintaining financial sustainability without heavy reliance on external funding. However, to accelerate international expansion, the company acknowledges the need for strategic investment, access to talent, and integration into broader European innovation ecosystems. 

As a first-time participant in an EIC program, LOQR is using the opportunity to gain strategic advice and support for its international growth efforts via the EIC Scaling Club. The company is actively tackling the challenge of expanding beyond Portugal, aiming to establish a presence in key European markets such as France, Italy, and Germany. Through the EIC Scaling Club, LOQR is receiving valuable guidance and connections. Ricardo elaborates: 

“We always try to prepare for our meetings [with club mentors] as much as we can, take as much information and advice as possible. We are very focused on trying to solve the challenge of growing internationally. We are getting very nice advice – and also lots of homework.”

About the EIC Scaling Club

The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.

The top 120+ European deep tech companies will be carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.

The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.

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