Tidalwave’s $22M Series A: AI Meets Mortgage Tech

Tidalwave, the New York startup attacking mortgage inefficiency with agentic AI, just closed a $22 million Series A led by Permanent Capital.

Strategic investors include homebuilding giant D.R. Horton and Engineering Capital—a signal that the industry's biggest players see value in AI-powered loan automation.

The FreeWheel Founder Taking on $1.46 Trillion Market

CEO Diane Yu isn't a first-time founder testing theories. She built and sold FreeWheel to Comcast for $400 million, then served as CTO at Better.com during its chaotic hypergrowth phase.

Those scars taught her exactly where digital mortgage platforms fail: fragmented systems, manual verification nightmares, and 500-page loan files that take 45 days to close.

Tidalwave's answer is “agentic AI”—autonomous software agents that handle complex multi-step tasks like income verification, underwriting prep, and borrower communication without constant human supervision.

Unlike chatbots that answer questions, agentic AI executes entire workflows by integrating with Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter, Freddie Mac's Loan Product Advisor, and real-time data from Plaid, Argyle, and TransUnion.

Funding History

Why D.R. Horton Bet on a 2023 Startup?

When America's largest homebuilder invests in your Series A, you're solving real pain. D.R. Horton closed 88,000 homes in 2024—each requiring a mortgage that could've been faster with Tidalwave's platform.

The startup projects capturing 4% of the $1.46 trillion U.S. mortgage origination market by 2026, an aggressive target that requires both enterprise partnerships and flawless execution.

Early customers like NEXA Lending and First Colony Mortgage report dramatically faster loan approvals. But Tidalwave faces stiff competition from established players like Blend, Roostify, and Encompass, all fighting for the same modernization dollars.

The Regulatory Tightrope Nobody Talks About

Mortgage AI lives or dies on regulatory compliance. One hallucination—an incorrect income figure, a missed disclosure—can trigger audits, fines, or worse.

Tidalwave claims its “patent-pending mortgage contextualizer” prevents AI errors, but scaling that reliability across thousands of loans monthly is the real test.

Company Snapshot

What's Next?

Tidalwave must prove its AI maintains accuracy at scale while navigating mortgage's brutal regulatory environment.

If Yu's track record holds, this could be the platform that finally makes digital mortgages work. If not, it's another overhyped AI solution drowning in compliance issues.

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