Tidalwave raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Permanent Capital Partners, with strategic investment from homebuilder D.R. Horton, to automate the $1.46 trillion mortgage industry through agentic AI that reduces approval times from 45 days to hours.

Founded by ex-DoubleClick CTO Diane Yu, the company addresses a fundamental infrastructure bottleneck where manual verification processes create anxiety for borrowers and operational inefficiency for lenders in America’s largest consumer lending market.

Natural emerged from stealth with $9.8 million in seed funding to build the financial infrastructure enabling AI agents to autonomously execute transactions—addressing a critical bottleneck as legacy payment systems designed for human-to-human interaction fail to support agent-driven commerce at enterprise scale.

The fintech startup’s emergence signals a fundamental infrastructure shift as enterprises move beyond pilot AI implementations toward production agent workflows that require autonomous financial capabilities. Traditional payment rails lack the complex approval chains and programmatic interfaces necessary for agents operating with business authorization and transaction accountability.