Finance Hackathon #7: Amsterdam

The day that was

Teams worked against real problems from their own businesses, using Lovable to build and Light's demo account and live financial data as their foundation. No engineers in the room. That remained very much the point.

And some of the builds were legitimately impressive. A real estate financing cockpit that tells CFOs exactly when a development project is heading off a cliff. A cash flow simulator that lets you stress-test seven scenarios at once and generates board commentary on the fly. A strategic intelligence layer that turns scattered company data into decisions leadership can actually make. All built in two hours, by finance leaders, with zero engineering support.

Why we do this

The finance function keeps businesses alive, and it's still the one most buried in manual work. Spreadsheets that break. Processes that compound errors quietly. Decisions made too late because nobody could see what was coming.

We run these events because the fastest way to show someone what's possible is to put the tools in their hands. For a lot of people in that room, this was the first time they'd built something without writing a single line of code. The first time a problem that's been sitting on the backlog for two years got solved before lunch.

The top three

Lots of big hitters, but our experts from some of the Netherlands' hottest companies and accounting firms marked their favourites:

Heijmans: Forecast Accuracy IQ

Most real estate developers track cashflow in Excel and find problems too late. Forecast Accuracy IQ turns budgets, cashflow, debt, permits, and sales into a plain-language view of where a project is heading and what could go wrong. Developers spot which line item is bleeding budget. CFOs quantify refinancing and covenant risk before the lender calls. Investors get IRR and margin sensitivity to delays and rate moves in one click. The judges called it a real tool, ready to use.

TUD: Cash Flow Time Machine

Finance teams spend hours manually stress-testing scenarios in spreadsheets and usually get through one or two before giving up. Cash Flow Time Machine gives them seven what-if levers — payment delays, hiring, churn, FX shifts, and more — where every adjustment instantly updates a 12-month cashflow chart, Monte Carlo confidence bands, and an AI-generated board narrative. A Stakeholder War Room shows how five personas (CFO, board member, CEO, auditor, FP&A lead) would react to the current cash position.

Applied AI: Polaris

Leadership teams aren't short on data. They're short on clarity. Polaris pulls together hiring plans, burn rate, forecast movement, and team updates, then surfaces where the tension is. A decision workspace executives can interrogate: where did this come from, what did the model infer, where does human judgment belong. A Decision Log for what was decided, why, and under what assumptions. Strategic finance tooling that respects the limits of AI. Impressive and ready to implement.

And the winner… Heijmans!

The judging panel – Carla Giordano (Finance Ops Lead at Framer), Tijs de Boer (Strategic Finance at Miro), and Natalie Nedre (Creator Community Marketing Manager at Miro) – recognised Forecast Accuracy IQ for its problem clarity, real-world depth, and immediate usability. This wasn't built for a hackathon. It was built for a Monday morning.

What's next

The tour heads to New York City on May 27, where we are joining forces with McKinsey and Lovable for Hack #8. No rest for the finance function.

If you want to request a Finance Hackathon in your city, head to light.inc/finhack. Follow us on LinkedIn to be the first to know where we're headed next.

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