Meet Procys, Member of Madrid/AI's Momentum 10

Congratulations on being a part of the Momentum 10, the elite top 10 startups who demonstrated truly exceptional drive and progress in the year 2024. The Momentum 10 Interview Series will delve into the unique journeys and powerful foundations propelling your startups to the top in the 2024 Startups of The Year campaign!

Tell us about you.

At Procys, we help businesses eliminate repetitive manual work through document and data automation powered by AI. Founded in The Netherlands, and now operating globally, our mission is to empower organizations to operate faster, smarter, and with fewer errors — whether it’s by processing invoices, verifying identities, or preventing domain abuse. We envision a world where people can focus on value-creation while automation handles the rest.

Tell us how your startup is changing the world.

Procys is reshaping how businesses manage operational data. We’ve built a suite of intelligent automation tools that streamline workflows involving documents, KYC/KYB verification, and abuse prevention — replacing hours of manual work with just a few seconds of AI-powered execution. Our goal is to improve both efficiency and compliance, helping businesses grow while staying secure and accurate in an increasingly regulated and fast-paced world.

What sets you apart from the competition?

Three things: our focus on end-to-end automation, our flexibility across use cases, and our international, fully remote team. We’re not just an OCR tool — we’re building a full automation ecosystem that includes document parsing, validation, classification, fraud detection, and user-defined model training. We also pride ourselves on being easy to integrate and fast to deploy. But perhaps what really makes us unique is our culture — a high-trust, high-output remote team from diverse backgrounds who work together to solve real-world problems at scale.

What does it mean for you to be in the Momentum 10?

It’s a huge honor. Being recognized as part of the Momentum 10 and taking 3rd place in Madrid’s Startup of the Year 2024 is not only a validation of our work — it’s a motivator to keep pushing forward. It feels great to be part of a global community of builders and innovators, and it reminds us that impact and purpose matter just as much as growth metrics.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to set out for this mission?

We’re a truly global, remote-first team, with people from different cultures and disciplines who believe in using technology for good. What unites us is our shared belief that tedious, repetitive work should be a thing of the past. We foster innovation through open communication, a strong feedback culture, and fast iteration cycles. Our engineers, designers, and customer teams all work in sync to deliver solutions that are not only powerful but also intuitive.

Looking back, what milestone was the biggest turning point for your startup?

One of the most defining moments for Procys was achieving AEAT homologation in Spain — a rigorous certification that unlocked new opportunities in highly regulated sectors.

We also made a major move by entering the Domain Abuse Automation market, helping registrars and hosting providers detect and stop malicious activity faster. Simultaneously, we launched a fully automated KYC/KYB verification product, which streamlines the onboarding and compliance processes for businesses across industries. These milestones marked our expansion beyond just document processing — into areas that truly define trust and safety on the internet. And through it all, our super international team, operating fully remotely, has shown what’s possible with the right culture and focus.

What’s one valuable lesson you learned this year that you’d pass on to other startups?

2024 taught us the value of focusing deeply on your strengths while remaining adaptable. The world throws unexpected changes — from regulations to market shifts — but by sticking to our core mission and staying close to our customers, we were able to navigate through uncertainty with clarity. Our advice: stay user-obsessed, measure what matters, and don’t try to do everything at once.

How do you envision your industry evolving in the coming years, and how will your startup stay ahead?

We see the automation industry moving from static, rules-based systems to adaptive, self-learning platforms. Document intelligence is just the beginning — the real shift will come when automation becomes context-aware and proactive, anticipating the needs of the business. At Procys, we’re already building toward that future with hybrid AI models, custom training pipelines, and compliance-first automation. As regulations increase and expectations rise, we’ll be ready — not just to keep up, but to lead.

How do you or your company intend to bring forward the Momentum 10 inspirations in 2025?

We’ll use this platform to share what we’ve learned, open source some of our internal tools, and collaborate with fellow innovators who share a vision for responsible, high-impact technology. Our commitment to the startup ecosystem runs deep — Hicham El Hafed, our director, has actively contributed as a mentor and speaker in national initiatives like Google for Startups Spain and the INCIBE Startup program, helping early-stage founders navigate the complex intersection of AI, cybersecurity, and product-market fit.

In 2025, we plan to double down on that engagement — through mentorship, public knowledge-sharing, and cross-border collaboration. Momentum 10 isn’t just a spotlight — it’s a responsibility. We’re here to raise the bar, support the next generation of entrepreneurs, and contribute to a stronger, more ethical tech ecosystem in Spain and beyond.

What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2025?

Our roadmap for 2025 is bold:

• Achieve SOC-2 certification to reinforce our commitment to security and trust.
• Reduce document processing time by 90% with new-generation ML models.
• Scale up to process over 2.5 million pages across our products.
• Launch a hybrid extraction feature, allowing customers to train their own custom extraction models for any document type — bringing even more flexibility to our platform.

2024 has been crazy, with all the new techs, and all the geopolitics fluctuations. What are the impacts of these to your startup, and to your industry as a whole? Be as brief or as detailed as you like.

Indeed, 2024 was both challenging and exciting. The explosion of GenAI redefined user expectations overnight. At the same time, geopolitical shifts led to growing concerns about data privacy, sovereignty, and compliance. We had to adapt fast — building for transparency, investing in explainable AI, and ensuring our infrastructure met global standards. The chaos also reminded us of the importance of building resilient systems and staying customer-centric no matter what.

We would love your feedback on HackerNoon as a tech publication! How has your experience been with us?

HackerNoon is a rare gem — it gives space to real stories, real voices, and real builders. We’ve loved the editorial independence and the depth of insights shared across the community. You make tech human again. Keep going.

Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us?

Build for people, not for hype. Automate what doesn’t require human judgment, and elevate what does. And always remember: your team is your superpower — take care of them, and they’ll take care of your mission.

On behalf of the entire Procys team, I want to extend my deepest thanks to HackerNoon community for this recognition. It’s a proud moment for us and a reflection of the effort, talent, and belief that drives everything we do. We’re excited for the road ahead and committed to building a more secure, automated, and human-centered future — one line of code at a time.

— Hicham El Hafed, Director of Procys.