Thought waves on seed venture

‍Vinyl AI is building the central hub for the “context layer” in accounting firms, where real value comes from strategic conversations, not just compliance work. It starts with automated meeting transcription, capturing and organising client discussions so they can be turned into clear, actionable insights.

We have just backed Vinyl, an AI-native platform transforming how accounting firms capture, structure, and act on the full context of client meetings. By turning every conversation into structured, actionable insight, Vinyl is redefining how firms deliver advisory services. We led the Seed round through Tidal Seed Fund III, backing a team with deep industry expertise and the ambition to become essential infrastructure for modern, advisory-led practices.

Markets with tailwinds

The accounting profession is under structural pressure. Fewer graduates are entering the field, experienced practitioners are retiring in large numbers, and compliance workloads are rising. Clients are shifting expectations from reactive reporting to proactive advice and strategic guidance.

Core compliance work is being commoditised by cloud adoption, automation, and AI. This is forcing firms to redefine their value proposition around advisory services, scaling expertise while protecting margins.

Cloud-native operations are accelerating, with fully digital firms growing at ~30–40% CAGR globally. AI adoption is surging: in the UK, 91% of accountants are using or planning to use AI, with 70% already on generative AI. In Australia and APAC, adoption rose from 55% to 69% in the past year. Firms that adopt more technology are materially more profitable, creating urgency and willingness to invest in solutions like Vinyl.

Game-changing products

Vinyl’s wedge is a vertically integrated tool for automated meeting capture and transcription, purpose-built for accounting workflows. It captures, transcribes, and structures client conversations so they can flow seamlessly into existing practice systems.

The roadmap unfolds in three phases:

• Now: Deep integrations with Xero Practice Manager, Karbon, and FYI push notes and action items directly into workflows, saving time and reducing rework.
• Next: Automate proposals, SOPs, and pricing, and productise common workflows such as Tax Planning, Client Onboarding, R&D Claims, and Strategic Reviews, embedding best practice and enabling consistent client service.
• Future: Combine unstructured conversation data with structured general ledger data to predict advisory needs, flag revenue gaps, and drive proactive service.

The long-term goal is to become the “relationship ledger” for accounting firms, capturing the context, trust, and opportunities that power growth.

Founders that hustle

Co-founders Trent McLaren, Liss McLaren, and Jordan Vickery bring complementary strengths. Trent is one of the most recognisable figures in accounting tech, with a career spanning leadership roles in high-growth SaaS and an unmatched ability to build trust in a conservative industry. Jordan brings deep technical execution capability, having led development of integrated SaaS platforms with complex data and workflow demands. Liss leads product, with expertise in translating complex workflows into intuitive, high-impact software experiences.

They are backed by influential leaders in accounting tech, including Richard McLean (KeyPay co-founder, now Employment Hero), Michael Wood (Co-founder, Dext), Guy Pearson (Co-founder and CEO, Ignition), and Nathan Harper (Co-founder, FinLert).

Compelling business model

Vinyl is initially targeting high-value early adopters: cloud native firms that invest heavily in technology, influence their peers, and have the workflow maturity to integrate Vinyl deeply. Expansion into the much larger “transitioning firm” segment will significantly grow the addressable market.

Every firm runs client meetings, each generating tasks, decisions, and follow-ups. Vinyl embeds into this flow, driving compounding usage through:

• Daily use across teams and service lines
• Expansion from initial users to firm-wide adoption
• Deep integrations that increase switching costs
• A pricing model aligned with value delivered

This creates strong retention and built-in growth.

Seed phase ready

Our investment thesis rests on three pillars:

• Market timing: The shift from compliance to advisory is accelerating, and AI adoption is becoming business-critical.
• Product vision: A clear pathway from solving an immediate workflow pain point to owning the firm’s core knowledge system.
• Team: Founders with the credibility, network, and execution capability to win in a trust-driven, change-resistant industry.

Vinyl is moving fast, with over 700 users in its beta program and a significant portion already converted to paid contracts. The team has launched simultaneously in Australia, the UK, and the US, a rare feat at this stage, and is rapidly building market presence. In the next 12 months, Vinyl will deepen penetration in the cloud native segment, expand integrations, and continue monetising beyond transcription.

Global appeal

The problem Vinyl solves is universal. Every firm in every market faces meeting follow-ups, lost context, and administrative overhead. Accounting offers a focused, regulated, and globally consistent starting point where trust is paramount. From there, the product can expand into other service-based sectors where conversation is the core workflow.

We are backing Vinyl to turn a forgotten workflow into a source of leverage. If you are building something similar in another category, we would love to hear from you.

Refold AI is an agentic integration platform that transforms enterprise connectivity from a services bottleneck into a seamless agent-driven superpower. It combines autonomous agents, memory-based orchestration (which retains and applies context over time), and secure edge deployment to take teams from integration request to live workflow in hours instead of months.

We’re proud to be leading Refold’s Seed round, backing experienced founders who are building the connective tissue for modern enterprise software. Refold replaces the manual work of systems integrators with embedded AI-native infrastructure. It empowers software vendors to ship enterprise-grade integrations in weeks rather than months, turning connectivity into a product advantage instead of a delivery cost.

Markets with tailwinds

Enterprise software is at an inflection point. AI is being embedded into every layer, but one major problem is holding back progress: integration. Every AI tool, legacy system, and data lake still needs to connect and communicate. Today, 80% of that work is done manually and holding back the real benefits of AI being deployed.

This is a $200 billion global challenge hiding in plain sight.

With the shift to agentic software, multi-cloud environments, and real-time orchestration, and automation, the right data has become essential. Refold is entering the market at the right time, when demand is high, legacy tools are failing, and enterprises are actively seeking a new solution.

Refold’s platform is purpose-built for complex environments, including hybrid and on-premise deployments. It solves the “last-mile” complexity that older iPaaS (Integration-platform-as-a-service) tools and consulting models cannot, making integration a feature rather than a burden.

Products that change the game

Refold doesn’t just automate steps. It makes decisions. At its core, Refold combines reasoning and reinforcement learning, enabling agents that learn and adapt over time.

The platform is built on three powerful layers:

• Workflow code agents: These write, test, and maintain custom integration logic
• MCP Chains: A natural language interface, based on the Model Context Protocol, that lets users describe workflows and launch them instantly
• Embedded integrations toolkit: Prebuilt UI components that let software vendors deliver native integrations to customers

This architecture supports teams from engineers to end users. Refold turns ad-hoc service requests into repeatable software in days. Unlike legacy systems that rely on rigid templates or billable consultants, Refold is built to eliminate complexity, not profit from it.

It enables rapid time-to-value, unlocks self-service opportunities, and codifies reusable workflows at scale. For customers like Incorta, Refold cut integration timelines by 90% and unlocked millions in revenue.

This is not a minor improvement. It is a complete rethinking of how enterprise systems connect.

Founders that hustle

Refold is led by Jugal Anchalia (CEO) and Abhishek Kumar (CTO), who previously built and exited JustDoc. They experienced the integration problem firsthand inside SAP-heavy enterprise environments, where a single schema change could result in days of downtime and six-figure escalation costs.

That experience has shaped a platform designed for speed, resilience, and developer control. The team has moved fast, developed deep product conviction, and already secured early enterprise traction. With 20 team members across San Mateo and Bangalore and growing, Refold is focused on expanding its integration catalogue and delivering zero-friction deployments.

A compelling business model

Refold has two distinct go-to-market motions:

1. Embedded deployments: Software vendors integrate Refold’s SDK, agents, and UI into their own products, delivering native connectivity to their users
2. Direct deployments: Enterprise IT and engineering teams use Refold internally to orchestrate workflows across complex internal systems

This dual model increases distribution and deepens usage. Each new integration, workflow, or module compounds the value. Some vendors are even launching new premium products powered by Refold’s platform.

Refold’s business model scales efficiently. It has low marginal costs and multiple monetisation levers, including usage-based pricing, hosting, services, and expansion tiers. It already delivers strong product currency through faster onboarding, cost savings, and increased revenue. In doing so, it is earning the right to become the integration partner of choice for some of the world’s most ambitious software platforms.

The Seed phase and beyond

This round will accelerate Refold’s growth. The company is scaling its engineering and GTM teams, expanding its library of connectors, and advancing its orchestration, memory, and reasoning capabilities. It is building the infrastructure needed to support and capture context for complex deployments across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments.

Over the next 18 months, the focus is on repeatability: turning strong early demand into scalable, defensible growth. Refold is not just streamlining enterprise integration. It is building the invisible logic layer that will power the next generation of software.

Global appeal

Integration is a universal problem. It slows innovation across every geography, industry, and infrastructure stack.

Refold’s platform is industry-agnostic, deployment-flexible, and designed for AI-first environments. It already has applications across analytics, fintech, business intelligence, and supply chain. Long-term, Refold’s ambition is to become the Model Context Protocol server that powers AI-native enterprise workflows.

This is not just a big market. It is foundational infrastructure for the future of software.

If you’re a visionary founder solving deep technical problems, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out via our website.

MediScan AI, a West Coast US startup is replacing the slow, manual admin behind personal injury and insurance claims with AI-first tools built for physicians: transforming a niche but essential industry that's long been underserved by modern software.

We’re thrilled to have led MediScan AI’s Seed round, partnering with the team to transform how independent medical evaluators do their work. Today, these experts rely heavily on outsourced admin services to collate records, manage paperwork, and structure reports. Many give up 25-30% of their revenue just to get the job done. These services are expensive, outdated, and inefficient. MediScan AI is building the software that replaces them. The product helps evaluators handle more cases, in less time, with no loss of quality.

Markets with tailwinds

The US personal injury market is under pressure. The number of insurance claims is rising, driven by increasing litigation and new sources of medical data. At the same time, the experts who assess these cases, known as independent medical evaluators or IMEs, are at capacity.

There are around 100,000 IMEs in the US, working within a USD 16 billion market. They are critical to the success of high-stakes legal and insurance claims, yet their workflow remains slow and manual. Documents arrive in disorganised batches, often handwritten, and it can take days to prepare a single report. With insurance losses reaching USD 143 billion last year, and evaluators struggling to keep up, the market is wide open for change.

Generative AI has reached a point where it can handle entire workflows, not just automate isolated tasks. MediScan AI is stepping in at exactly the right time.

Products that change the game

MediScan has built a platform that turns messy medical records into clear, structured reports. It handles everything from scanning and cleaning documents to pulling out key facts and creating medical timelines. Evaluators can search across an entire case using plain language. They might ask questions like “When did symptoms first appear?” or “What treatment was prescribed?” and get instant, accurate answers.

The most powerful feature is how the system learns. Every time a physician edits or refines the output, the software improves. This feedback loop is built directly into the product, meaning the quality increases with every case reviewed. Most competitors rely on manual checking and outsourced review. MediScan AI does not. Their model improves through direct use by the experts themselves.

The result is speed without trade-offs. Evaluators using MediScan AI report a dramatic reduction in admin time and a big lift in case volume. That translates to more income for them and better, faster outcomes for the lawyers and insurers who rely on their insights.

The most powerful feature is how the system learns. Every time a physician edits or refines the output, the software improves. This feedback loop is built directly into the product, meaning the quality increases with every case reviewed. Most competitors rely on manual checking and outsourced review. MediScan AI does not. Their model improves through direct use by the experts themselves.

The result is speed without trade-offs. Evaluators using MediScan AI report a dramatic reduction in admin time and a big lift in case volume. That translates to more income for them and better, faster outcomes for the lawyers and insurers who rely on their insights.

Founders that hustle

MediScan AI is led by co-founders Kavian Mojabe and Sean Podvent, based on the US West Coast. Kavian, CEO and CTO, is a software engineer with personal context. His father worked as a medical evaluator, giving him firsthand insight into the problems these professionals face. He has built systems at Amazon and in startups through to acquisition, bringing both technical skill and sharp product thinking.

Sean, COO, is a multi-time healthtech founder with a successful exit. He knows the sales cycle, understands healthcare customers, and has built and scaled SaaS businesses from scratch. His most recent company, Hygiene IQ, was acquired in 2023.

Together, they have kept the business lean and focused. They have won early customers through founder-led sales, used customer feedback to shape the product, and stayed disciplined on spend.

A compelling business model

MediScan’s first customers are individual evaluators and small groups. These professionals make independent buying decisions and are motivated to increase their efficiency. This makes them ideal early adopters.

What makes the model even stronger is how naturally it expands. MediScan AI is not just a tool for one step of the process. They are building an end-to-end system that can support the full lifecycle of medical evaluations.

• Act I: Give individual evaluators better tools to process records and write reports.
• Act II: Support physician management groups with scheduling, billing, and admin.
• Act III: Connect evaluators directly with law firms and insurers through a centralised platform.

By owning the core workflow, MediScan AI captures valuable medical insights that competitors cannot easily access. That data, structured and validated by physicians, is what makes the product stronger over time.

Global appeal

While MediScan AI is focused on the US today, the problem is global. Healthcare and insurance systems everywhere struggle with medical record reviews, especially in complex claims. The burden is high and the workflows are broken.

By proving their product in one of the most regulated and high-stakes markets in the world, MediScan AI is setting a strong foundation for international expansion. They are building with an AI-first approach and physician input at every stage, which positions them well to grow across jurisdictions.

The Seed phase and beyond

MediScan AI is early but executing with clarity. The funds from this round will go toward expanding the technical team, building out customer success, and adding features that improve collaboration and compliance.

This is a workflow that has long been overlooked. It has been buried in paperwork and powered by expensive overhead. MediScan AI is taking a software-first approach to reshaping it. They are not chasing trends. They are solving a deep, specific problem that sits at the heart of billion-dollar insurance and legal systems.

The opportunity in vertical AI is not simply about replacing manual work. It is about giving professionals more control, more leverage, and better tools to do what they do best. In MediScan AI’s case, that means helping physicians who move markets work faster, smarter, and on their own terms.

We are proud to partner with Kavian and Sean as they build the future of this category.

If you’re a visionary founder ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.

Tendl, the startup transforming how businesses respond to government tenders, has secured pre-seed funding led by Tidal Ventures. The investment marks a significant milestone in modernising what has traditionally been an unsexy, time-consuming sector ripe for innovation.

We are excited to lead Tendl's recent funding round, partnering with the team to revolutionise the tendering process through AI-powered technology. Based in Queensland, Tendl is making tendering more accessible and efficient for companies selling to governments and large enterprises, helping them increase revenue through better opportunity discovery and response management.

Markets with tailwinds

The tendering market represents a massive opportunity, with critical market dynamics creating perfect conditions for technological disruption:

• Global government procurement market worth $10 trillion in annual spending
• Government procurement reached $99B in Australia last year
• Up to 13% of OECD GDP flows through tender processes
• Suppliers spend up to 30% of revenue on tendering processes with no guarantee of success
• Traditional high barriers to entry requiring specialised teams and significant time investment
• Growing sovereign debt pushing increased reliance on competitive bidding
• Post-DOGE environment driving renewed focus on cost-effective procurement

The timing for Tendl's solution is particularly compelling as generative AI reaches maturity. Recent developments have shown what can be achieved with modest budgets and smaller, more efficient teams. While previous tools focused mainly on collaboration and information gathering, AI enables a fundamental reimagining of the entire workflow, coinciding with government initiatives seeking greater efficiency in procurement processes.

Products that change the game

Tendl's AI-powered platform stands out through several innovative features that fundamentally transform how companies approach tenders:

• Intelligent opportunity discovery through integrations with over 600 tender portals
• Automated analysis and matching of opportunities to company capabilities
• Smart pre-filling systems that pull relevant information from existing documents
• Deep CRM integrations for tracking progress and improving future bids
• Complete workflow automation powered by AI

The platform delivers concrete benefits across three key areas:

1. Discovery: Makes tender identification user-friendly and 50% faster
2. Analysis: AI agents instantly evaluate fit and requirements
3. Response: Transforms days-long processes into sub-hour workflows, saving tens of thousands annually

Founders that hustle

Founder Laurie Nicol brings a unique combination of engineering, economics, and entrepreneurial experience to Tendl. As a second-time founder who previously built and sold a company working with government data, Laurie deeply understands both the technical and commercial aspects of the problem space.

What impressed us most was Laurie's customer-centric approach and ability to execute with precision. The combination of technical acumen and commercial awareness positions him perfectly to tackle the complex challenges in the tendering space. His vision for leveraging AI technology to deliver powerful solutions without massive infrastructure investments demonstrates the kind of innovative thinking needed in this sector.

A compelling business model

Tendl employs a hybrid pricing model combining platform fees with usage-based pricing, tied to tender volume. This allows them to:

• Scale revenue naturally with customer usage
• Capture value proportional to delivered benefits
• Build strong customer stickiness through integration
• Create potential for success-based pricing as the platform matures
• Reduce at-risk costs for suppliers across the entire market

The platform's positioning as the primary source of tendering data opens opportunities to capture value from the trillion-dollar tendering market through success-based pricing models. By reducing the cost across the whole market and minimising at-risk costs for suppliers, Tendl is creating value at both individual and systemic levels.

Global appeal

Tendl's solution addresses a universal challenge in government and enterprise procurement. While starting with a strong foundation in Australia, the platform's capabilities are readily applicable to similar procurement environments globally. The administrative burden in tendering is a worldwide challenge, presenting significant opportunities for international expansion.

Their AI-first approach to automation and tendering positions them well for scaling across different regulatory frameworks and jurisdictions. By building a solid foundation in Australia's procurement environment, they're developing capabilities that will translate effectively to other markets.

The Seed phase and beyond

Tendl has shown early validation and clear product-market fit signals. The allocated funds will primarily fuel the development of an exceptional team, enabling them to bring their visionary product to life. With a focus on building out robust technical capabilities and conducting strategic market research in the US, Tendl is well-positioned to capitalise on the growing demand for intelligent tendering solutions.

From day one, Laurie's unwavering focus has been on establishing Tendl as the backbone of tender operations not just in Australia but on a global scale, and we wholeheartedly support this mission. We look forward to continuing to support the Tendl team as they set out to transform how companies approach and win tenders.

If you’re a visionary founder ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.

Minikai is a game-changing AI platform revolutionising the disability and aged care sectors by transforming tedious paperwork into automated magic. By taking care of the heavy administrative lifting, Minikai empowers care providers to do what they do best - provide exceptional care to those who need it most.

We're thrilled to have led Minikai's Seed round, partnering with the team to revolutionise how care providers operate in highly regulated sectors through AI-powered automation. As your AI ally in disability and aged care, their platform transforms the workflow of frontline care providers by automating administrative work and compliance reporting, enabling them to focus more time on patient care while building a powerful trust platform between regulators and providers.

Markets with tailwinds

The aged care and disability sectors present a massive opportunity, with $50bn in government funding in Australia alone. These sectors face mounting challenges that create perfect conditions for technological disruption:

• Critical administrative burden with compliance teams spending over 50% of their time on audits and paperwork
• Providers face fines exceeding $1.5 million for compliance breaches
• Tens of thousands of incidents go unreported every year due to complex reporting requirements
• Training staff costs $230,000 per 100 clients annually
• Growing regulatory pressures with new mandates requiring minimum care minutes per resident
• Widespread inefficiencies costing care providers and the government billions in tax dollars annually

The timing for Minikai's solution is particularly compelling as generative AI reaches maturity. Unlike traditional software which often requires structured data input, GenAI can process unstructured information like clinical notes and conversations, enabling true hands-off automation. This technological shift coincides with government initiatives funding AI pilots to improve efficiency and care standards.

Products that change the game

Minikai's AI-powered platform stands out through several innovative features that fundamentally transform how care providers work:

• Collective memory: A sophisticated implementation of long-term memory for LLMs that maintains continuity of care across multiple providers
• Context-aware personalisation: Dynamic UI components that adjust based on user roles and preferences
• Automated documentation: Converts conversations and interactions into structured reports and compliance documentation
• Mini agents: Each patient gets a dedicated AI agent that understands their specific needs and history

The platform delivers concrete benefits across three key areas:

1. Reporting: Makes incident reporting user-friendly for carers and 50% faster for compliance staff
2. Quality & safeguarding: AI agents instantly scan all documents and identify compliance gaps
3. Always-on audit: Instantly compile evidence from a live, self-serve dossier

Early results are compelling, with customers like SDA Services seeing dramatic improvements in efficiency, particularly in processing intricate SDA and SIL applications. The platform is already trusted by care providers supporting over 150,000 vulnerable Australians annually, demonstrating strong market validation.

What truly sets Minikai apart is their vision to become the trust platform between regulators and care providers. By starting with on-the-ground workflow automation, they're building the foundation to become the system of record for all compliance activities.

Founders that hustle

The founding team combines deep technical expertise with personal connection to their mission:

• Keoki Alexander-Chang (CEO): Left a promising career leading Deloitte'sForensic AI lab to launch Minikai, motivated by his mother's struggles navigating health and human services. His experience gives him unique insights into both the technical and human aspects of the problem.
• Kyel Shera-Jones (CTO): Brings a powerful personal connection through his nephew Chase, an NDIS participant. Combined with his experience modernising complex backend infrastructure for the Australian government and leading high-performance teams at Concentrix-Tigerspike, he bridges technical expertise with deep domain understanding.
• Freddie Hedegaard (CGO): Former CEO of Dungbeetle.io, bringing extensive sales expertise to drive Minikai's growth and market penetration.

What impressed us most was the team's combination of technical sophistication and genuine mission-driven approach. They've transformed personal experiences with the care system into a solution that addresses critical industry pain points.

A compelling business model

Minikai has demonstrated strong early traction, having already secured major care providers who collectively support over 150,000 vulnerable Australians annually. Their platform offers clear value proposition by:

• Reducing administrative time by 30-50%
• Accelerating application processing and approval times
• Improving compliance accuracy and documentation quality
• Enabling more time for direct patient care
• Transforming hours of work into seconds through AI automation

Their revenue model scales with the number of patients being managed, providing natural expansion opportunities as customers grow. The platform's ability to handle complex regulatory requirements while improving efficiency creates strong customer stickiness.

Global appeal

Minikai's solution addresses a universal challenge in healthcare and social services. While starting with a strong foundation in Australia's NDIS and aged care sectors, the platform's capabilities are readily applicable to similar regulatory environments globally. The administrative burden in healthcare and social services is a worldwide challenge, presenting significant opportunities for international expansion.

Their AI-first approach to automation and compliance positions them well for scaling across different regulatory frameworks and jurisdictions. By building a solid foundation in Australia's complex regulatory environment, they're developing capabilities that will translate effectively to other markets.

The Seed phase and beyond

The funding round will primarily support:

• Expanding the technical team to enhance the platform's AI capabilities
• Building out sales and customer success functions to support rapid growth
• Accelerating development of their regulatory trust platform features
• Supporting international expansion plans

The founders have a clear vision for growth beyond their initial market, with plans to expand their platform's capabilities and geographical reach. With their deep technical expertise in AI, strong early traction, and clear product differentiation, we believe they're well-positioned to build a category-defining company in the care sector.

If you’re a visionary founder ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.

AIMon is tackling one of the biggest challenges in AI today: making Large Language Models (LLMs) safe, reliable, and enterprise-ready.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve co-led AIMonʼs Pre-Seed round alongside Bessemer Venture Partners. AIMon is addressing one of AI’s most pressing challenges: ensuring Large Language Models (LLMs) are safe, reliable, and enterprise-ready. Their platform empowers organisations to deploy AI confidently, mitigating risks like hallucinations, harmful content, and data leakage.

Markets with tailwinds

Generative AI is transforming industries at a breakneck pace, but deploying LLMs isn’t easy—one mistake in accuracy or safety can destroy trust and credibility. AIMon addresses this gap, providing the essential reliability layer enterprises need to adopt and build with AI confidently.

The generative AI market is expected to grow to $143B by 2027, with spending climbing at a staggering 73% annual growth rate. Regulatory frameworks like the EU AI Act are pushing organisations to prioritise transparency and safety, adding urgency to the need for reliable AI solutions. Yet, despite the massive opportunity, no major player owns the LLM reliability space—until now.

AIMon’s platform has the potential to be as indispensable to AI as Datadog has become to DevOps. It’s critical infrastructure for an AI-driven world.

Products that change the game

AIMon’s Hallucination Detection and Monitoring platform is the enterprise solution the AI world has been waiting for. It’s cutting-edge yet simple, designed to make AI deployment safe, scalable, and trustworthy. The platform delivers real-time insights, detecting hallucinations, toxicity, and sensitive data with low latency. It scales seamlessly on standard hardware, eliminating the need for costly infrastructure, and it’s customisable to meet the unique demands of enterprise applications.

By enabling organisations to deploy AI with confidence, AIMon transforms LLMs from experimental tools into dependable engines for innovation. This isn’t just a product; it’s the backbone of AI reliability.

Founders that hustle

AIMon’s co-founders, Puneet Anand and Preetam Joshi, are a powerhouse duo with a track record of delivering transformative technology. Puneet scaled multiple monitoring products at AppDynamics to $150M+ ARR, earning his reputation as a builder of must-have enterprise tools. Preetam, meanwhile, was instrumental at Netflix, where he co-created Metaflow, an open-source ML framework that’s still shaping the AI landscape for companies like Netflix, Intel, Porsche, and Goldman Sachs.

With their combined expertise in building scalable ML systems and solving hard technical problems, Puneet and Preetam are more than capable—they’re primed to lead AIMon to success. They don’t just build; they execute, iterate, and adapt with incredible speed.

A compelling business model

AIMon’s initial go-to-market strategy focuses on B2B sales, targeting enterprises that urgently need reliable AI tools. Over time, the team plans to target users bottoms-up, fostering a community-driven adoption model that scales.

Starting with monitoring, AIMon creates an indispensable wedge in the AI stack. As the platform evolves into a comprehensive evaluation and improvement layer, it becomes a key driver of enterprise AI performance. This dual approach positions AIMon to build a defensible, scalable business in a rapidly growing market.

The Seed phase and beyond

With its funding, AIMon is laser-focused on getting market traction for its product, converting warm leads into enterprise customers and growing its engineering team. Their goal is to prove product-market fit and achieve significant ARR within 18 months, paving the way for further growth.

AIMon isn’t just building a product—they’re creating the foundation for trustworthy AI at scale. As generative AI adoption accelerates, AIMon is perfectly positioned to lead the charge, making safe and reliable AI a reality for enterprises worldwide.

If you’re a visionary founder ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.

Leading the charge in powering the asset management industry forward with AI, Asseti uses high-quality imagery and machine learning to predict and prioritise asset needs, minimising downtime and maximising lifespan.

We’re delighted to have led Asseti’s Seed round, working with the team to realise their mission of building an AI-powered asset condition monitoring platform. Asseti is a game-changer in intelligent asset management, covering an expansive market of real assets. Its software platform utilises high-quality imagery and advanced machine learning to predict and prioritise asset needs. It monitors wear and tear, leaks, and potential hazards, thereby minimising downtime and maximising the lifespan of valuable assets. Asseti is quickly becoming the leader in condition management across the lifecycle of these assets.

Markets with tailwinds

You only need to look out your window to know that asset management is an expansive market. Imagine all the offices, stores, warehouses, quarries, properties and buildings around the globe—Asseti can be used with all of them, no matter where they are. Managing these real assets has traditionally been cumbersome and risky. Infrastructure demands regular upkeep to minimise downtime and ensure a safe operational environment. Another market factor driving Asseti forward is the opportunity presented by digitisation.

Historically, asset-heavy industries have lagged in digital transformation due to deep-rooted processes and legacy operations. However, recent drivers like COVID-19 and the push for sustainable practices have accelerated this shift. Predictive maintenance, which leverages data analytics and predictive modelling, has gained popularity for its ability to prevent unplanned downtime and costly repairs. Furthermore, the growing demands for sustainability have underscored the importance of reducing carbon emissions. Asseti meets these needs by enabling remote access to assets, thereby reducing travel and enhancing worker safety.

Products that change the game

Asseti’s platform uses high-quality imagery to create detailed 3D digital models. Machine learning and AI analyse these models to comprehensively list components, quantities, conditions, and issues. This empowers managers to create detailed work plans for their asset portfolios, assessing them in risk and cost.

Traditionally, engineers or staff would climb structures, take inadequate photos with digital cameras, write reports, and circulate them as PDFs. Asseti captures this condition data over time, giving asset managers and senior management a complete overview of their portfolios’ condition across different time periods.

By moving costing and forecasting from Excel to a dynamic, data-driven platform, Asseti provides primary data and insights across the asset lifecycle: acquisition, operation, and disposal.

Their newest innovation, Asseti Foresight, revolutionises capital expenditure (CapEx) planning in asset management. Powered by AI, it forecasts total replacement lifecycles and maintenance costs across entire asset networks, optimising intervention timing based on degradation and financial modelling. This tool streamlines long-term financial planning, offering strategic insights for future expenditures.

The next stage for Asseti is instant asset assessment through satellite imagery, offering more frequent evaluations.

Founders that hustle

Founder Aonghus Stevens, with 15 years of experience in the drone imagery industry, leads a stellar team with members from notable companies like NearMap, Commbank, and Deloitte.

Being a solo founder demands resilience, focus, drive, a clear vision, and problem-solving skills—Aonghus exemplifies all of these qualities and more. By being data-obsessed and focused on providing solutions that offer asset owners and managers insights over the entire asset lifecycle, not just at a single point in time. He believes the future of asset management lies in data-led decision-making, envisioning data use decades into the future.

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A compelling business model

Every building and structure is a potential asset that Asseti can assess and help manage. Asseti’s model not only reduces time and risk but also provides asset owners with a detailed view of their asset’s condition over time. This understanding of condition data over time then allows Asseti to offer detailed insights into CapEx planning and affords them the right to influence both the acquisition and disposal stages in the asset lifecycle. Asseti also owns the primary condition data of the building, which can be transferred to a new owner of the building, almost like a system of record for an asset.

On top of its existing traction, Asseti’s latest functionality to drive CapEx planning and spending involves more teams and stakeholders across its customer base, including finance and executives. This enables the platform to be an indispensable part of their customers’ businesses. This transition will lift these teams out of spreadsheets and into Asseti, similar to what Orkestra has achieved in the solar and battery space.

The Seed phase and beyond

Asseti is in its Seed Phase, having demonstrated strong product-market fit. It is already trusted by industry leaders such as Mirvac, CBRE, Caltex, Colliers, and Toyota. Asseti has achieved remarkable growth of 200%+ year over year and is poised for continued growth in its expansive addressable market.

The Asseti team is looking to enhance its product and engineering capabilities, specifically focusing on scaling its software offering. Driven by their initial success in the market, they are also keen on expanding in the US and are excited to introduce new AI-driven features for instant asset condition insights—a true game-changer in the industry!

If you’re a visionary founder ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.

Orkestra is revolutionising the energy industry with its game-changing platform that enables critical decision-making throughout the lifecycle of renewable energy projects.

The Tidal team is excited to share our investment notes from our second investment in Orkestra to give you a glimpse into our decision-making process. At Tidal, our investments across various markets, models, and products are guided by our core foundational principles that help us define a great Tidal Seed Investment.

Markets with tailwinds

The global transition towards cleaner, more efficient energy sources is no longer a mere aspiration; it’s an imperative driven by environmental factors, regulatory pressures, and evolving consumer preferences. By 2030, this burgeoning sector is poised to become a colossal +$2 trillion global market. As we stand at the cusp of a transformative shift away from fossil fuels, we look to navigate the intricate landscape of clean energy and uncover promising opportunities within renewable technologies, energy storage, and the broader sustainable ecosystem. At Tidal, we look for markets ripe for disruption, and it’s clear that the market Orkestra exists within fits that mould. A few of the factors we’ve taken into account when assessing this opportunity include:

• Bloomberg declared that the energy sector must collectively deploy five times more wind power, three times more solar energy, and a staggering twenty-six times more batteries annually until 2030 to meet basic clean energy targets.
• There is a critical need for enhanced controls in generating and distributing clean power to the grid.
• The future of the power grid is set to be substantially more decentralised in contrast to the conventional centralised fossil fuel-based grid.
• Batteries will emerge as an indispensable component, seamlessly integrated into every renewable energy deployment.
• Virtual or Distributed Power Plants (VPP or DPP) aggregate and scale distributed power generation to normalise supply based on demand to the grid. There is a significant opportunity for a data player to emerge in orchestrating VPP’s power distribution to the grid by improving yield and, in turn, potential margins.

The magnitude of this opportunity is immense, and the race to meet these ambitious climate targets will largely depend on innovation from industry disruptors like Orkestra that empower the industry with much-needed tools that help drive quick and accurate decisions about renewable energy projects at scale.

Products that change the game

Orkestra’s B2B feasibility platform is helping drive the transition to clean energy by providing modern energy companies with the tools they need to analyse, sell, and manage their energy solutions and projects.

Historically, Excel was the go-to tool for analysing the feasibility of clean energy projects, demanding extensive hours from skilled analysts. However, as the urgency of achieving the net-zero targets intensifies, there’s a need to arm sales teams with easy-to-use and accurate tools to quicken the time to a decision. Orkestra’s software is pivotal in the renewable energy transition, enabling teams to set up and evaluate 250 solutions in just ten minutes, compared to the days it would have taken with Excel and expert analysts.

The platform seamlessly integrates its user-friendly interface with sophisticated algorithms and analytics to significantly reduce the time and expense associated with assessing project viability while also enhancing project outcomes from both economic and sustainability standpoints. Orkestra Co-Founder, Chris Cooper, summarised their strategic vision:

We aim to be the intelligence layer that underpins clean energy projects worldwide. Teams that previously used Excel spreadsheets or outdated software instantly see the value in Orkestra’s offering.

Founders that hustle

Co-founders Chris, James, and Michael have deep domain experience, having met at a new energy consultancy, where they worked together on innovative solutions for leading energy and property companies. The team has used their industry expertise and mathematics and data science background to develop sophisticated modelling capabilities for the Orkestra platform. They are deeply data-driven, and their passion to help drive the world towards its climate targets is second to none.

They have built a powerful and capable team that has proved that they can build world-class technology that is loved by its customers and is delivering real-world impact by unlocking clean energy solutions for businesses all around the world.

A compelling business model

The Orkestra team has created a mission-critical product and currently offers subscription plans across three tiers that appeal to a broad spectrum of customers, from small-scale businesses to some of Australia’s largest energy retailers.

Driven by a strong commitment to unlocking the potential of the renewable energy sector, Orkestra is dedicated to enhancing its capability for precise site feasibility modelling. This enhancement will play a pivotal role in facilitating the implementation of a greater number of renewable projects.

Customers have successfully modelled numerous projects and conducted over a million solution simulations through their innovative platform, solidifying their status as the industry benchmark for energy feasibility assessment. With an ambitious goal of sustaining its remarkable growth rate exceeding 200% since the start of this year, Orkestra is poised for substantial expansion.

As time progresses, Orkestra envisions numerous opportunities for further growth by introducing new products that assist energy companies in assessing, tracking, and managing energy assets throughout their entire lifecycle.

Global appeal

Orkestra’s solution addresses a universal problem, which is why they’ve set their sights on further international expansion beyond Australia, New Zealand, and Japan and are eyeing Europe’s thriving renewable energy markets.

By achieving critical mass in their various markets, they can secure a significant data advantage, tapping into a broad spectrum of primary data sources. This wealth of information, combined with Orkestra’s top-tier AI capabilities for modelling, benchmarking, and offering optimisation insights, positions them for excellence in overseeing existing and newly established sites within a multi-site portfolio or virtual power plant (VPP).

The Seed phase and beyond

In its Seed Phase, Orkestra has assembled a highly capable team, demonstrated strong product-market fit, and built a global-ready product. The funding from this round will support their global expansion, enable them to build exciting new product features, and implement a scalable and repeatable go-to-market approach. We see a significant opportunity to ramp up growth efforts with all product and sales activities working in harmony and provide customers with different maturity levels with the opportunity to either self-serve or tailor their offerings with a higher degree of support.

If you’re a visionary founder ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.

Flagship’s retail tech platform is poised to become integral to retail operations, driving data-driven insights and ushering in transformative changes across all retail establishments. This evolution has the potential to reshape the way retailers conduct business, empowering them to encapsulate their expertise within an embedded knowledge system.

The Tidal team led Flagship’s Seed round, and we’re excited to share our investment notes with you below. Our investment strategy encompasses diverse markets, models, and products, guided by a set of core principles fundamental to our decision-making process. If you’d like to explore the key pillars that define an exceptional Tidal Seed investment, you can learn more about how we invest here.

Markets with tailwinds

Simply put, retail is a massive market—with a staggering global expenditure of US$28 trillion in 2022. For those who can see beyond the challenges of a discouraging macroeconomic landscape, the post-COVID retail trends offer intriguing opportunities to identify emerging tailwinds. Trends like:

• Shoppers remain strongly inclined towards traditional brick-and-mortar stores, with a whopping 85% of global retail sales happening physically in-store.
• Interestingly, pure-play e-commerce brands are venturing into the world of physical retail. They recognise that in-person shopping experiences offer a unique dimension that their online counterparts can’t replicate.
• The concept of omnichannel retail has shifted from a nice-to-have luxury to an absolute necessity for any brand aspiring to thrive in today’s market.

As elucidated by Shopify:

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Retailers are using stores to deepen the consumer connection with the brand. In a crowded social and e-commerce space, stores can drive engagement and loyalty.

Tidal has been steadfast in our conviction regarding the e-commerce theme for quite some time now. We have demonstrated our commitment through investments in innovative companies like Shippit, Search.io, Carted, and Drive Yello. We haven’t yet seen a proposition around critical technology infrastructure that truly enables omnichannel retailers to reach the same level of sophistication in-store as they have online.

Products that change the game

Over the past six months, our close collaboration with the Flagship team has given us a profound insight into the incredible potential to transform retail operations management. It’s evident that retailers are eager to unify their segmented business units, bridging the gap between online and offline realms to create a cohesive operating system. Flagship envisions a future where they solve this—with the workflows and metrics of diverse departments, such as Buyers, Planners, E-commerce, In-store Visual Merchandising, and Marketing, seamlessly integrated.

Operational efficiencies often start and end with better data, and retail isn’t any different. Flagship’s leading product is a visual merchandising tool for retailers that provides unique primary data insights around granular store-based revenue performance. It enables retailers to centrally and digitally manage the roll-out, track the compliance, and get performance insights into their visual merchandising guides.

We firmly believe that better data and improved workflows can enable retailers to harness their experience and knowledge, convert it into embedded expertise, and subsequently codify their intellectual property for iterative improvements.

Founders that hustle

Flagship’s founder, Simon Molnar, brings a wealth of retail experience to the table. He served as CEO at Ice Jewellery and held various roles at Afterpay, giving him a dual perspective as both retailer and retail technologist. Simon is deeply customer-focused, collaborating closely with retailers to ensure that the product genuinely addresses their challenges and delivers tangible value. His unique background fuels his passion for helping retailers expertly position their products, optimise sales, minimise waste, and drive business growth.

Simon has meticulously assembled an exceptional team of individuals who have achieved remarkable success at renowned Australian tech giants such as Atlassian, Canva, and Afterpay and possess a profound understanding of the retail industry. This collaborative strength has enabled Flagship to successfully onboard some of Australia’s most prominent retail brands, including Venroy, LSKD, Aje Athletica, and SIR.

A compelling business model

Flagship’s mission is to become an integral component of retail operations, driving data-driven insights and facilitating transformations across diverse business units. They aim to supercharge mid-sized retail groups that are currently burdened by manual processes—significantly impacting their efficiency and effectiveness.

Flagship’s inaugural visual merchandising product drives a wedge in retail operations by creating primary data insights on store performance that have not existed before. From there, they can offer insights and workflows into the broader retail operation, capturing additional wallet share. With a huge market to target, a product that adds a lot of value, and a cross-section of teams and functions to serve within retail ops—Flagship has the makings of a seamless land and expand SaaS business model with a hybrid product-led-sales strategy.

The Seed phase and beyond

Flagship is currently in its Seed Phase and has already shown strong product-market fit, successfully onboarding industry-leading retailers, including Venroy, LSKD, Aje Athletica, and SIR. These partnerships have positioned them for the next phase of growth on the global stage, with the allocated funds primarily fuelling the development of an exceptional team to enable them to bring their visionary products to life.

From day one, Simon’s unwavering focus has been on establishing Flagship as the backbone of retail operations not only in Australia but also on a global scale, and we wholeheartedly support this mission. We look forward to continuing to support the Flagship team as they set out to transform how retail operations are managed.

If you’re a visionary founder ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.