Tidal Ventures pours into Mastercard-backed fintech RedOwl’s seed round

The Australian Financial Review’s Street Talk reports that venture capital fund Tidal Ventures has led a $5.3 million seed round for Melbourne-headquartered RedOwl, valuing the Mastercard-backed, AI-powered fintech at close to $40 million. Sydney venture capital firm CP Ventures also invested. The round follows RedOwl’s pre-seed raise in March last year.

RedOwl’s intelligence and governance platform helps companies detect and prevent margin leakage, catching common errors such as invoices priced above the contracted rate, services delivered but never billed, and spending that falls outside company policy.

RedOwl will use the new funds to further develop the platform and grow its client base, which already includes ASX-listed telco Aussie Broadband and shopping centre owner Vicinity Centres.

Founded by Jitto Arulampalam and Thushan Shanmugarajah in 2024, RedOwl began its partnership with Mastercard the same year, when it was selected for the payment giant’s global start-up engagement program.

“Finance teams are being asked to make faster decisions across increasingly complex systems, but the context they need remains fragmented.”

— Kieran O’Neill, Tidal Ventures

Read the full article by Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Angira Bharadwaj in The Australian Financial Review.