Founded in 2022, the fintech startup has quickly attracted top investor support through a seasoned entrepreneurial tech team and an innovative product designed to better meet consumer needs.
Tidalwave, a mortgage technology company leveraging agentic AI, has secured a $22 million Series A round. This investment positions the company to process over 200,000 mortgage loans annually and target approximately 4% of the U.S. mortgage market by 2026.
Permanent Capital led the round, with participation from D.R. Horton, Inc., the nation’s largest homebuilder, which is also joining as an enterprise customer. Engineering Capital provided additional funding, bringing Tidalwave’s total capital raised to $24 million.
This announcement signals a shift in the mortgage industry, which has struggled with inefficiency, fragmented systems, and slow adoption of automation. The sector is now beginning to embrace AI to improve the lending process.
The founders of Tidalwave, Diane Yu, Jack Deng, and Cheng Li, seized the opportunity to bring AI into the lending process, bringing their deep backgrounds:
- Yu, Co-Founder and CEO, was the CTO at Better.com and the co-founder of FreeWheel, an ad-tech platform acquired by Comcast in 2014.
- Deng, Co-Founder and CTO, had engineering roles at both FreeWheel and Better.com.
- Li, Co-Founder and Head of Engineering Operations, held engineering positions at Better.com and Google.
Tackling the Mortgage Industry’s Long-Standing Inefficiencies
Despite years of digital transformation efforts, most mortgage process workflows remain manual, leading to high costs, frequent errors, and borrower frustration.
Tidalwave’s AI platform solves these pain points by automating complex mortgage tasks, including data verification, underwriting, and documentation checks, requiring minimal human oversight.
With direct integrations to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Tidalwave can instantly perform underwriting verifications that previously required manual review. Partnerships with Plaid, Argyle, and Truv further enable real-time verification of income, employment, and assets, significantly reducing paperwork and processing time.
Freddie Mac research shows that advanced digital tools can reduce origination costs by $1,500 per loan, shorten production cycles, and improve customer satisfaction. Tidalwave’s platform is designed to deliver these benefits at scale.
Accelerating Toward 200,000 Loans Annually
The Mortgage Bankers Association projects $1.46 trillion in U.S. mortgage originations for 2026. By processing over 200,000 loans annually, or about 4% of the market, Tidalwave seeks to become a key infrastructure provider in the lending ecosystem.
In the past six months, major mortgage providers such as NEXA Lending, First Colony Mortgage, and Mortgage Solutions have adopted Tidalwave’s platform to streamline applications and simplify the borrower experience. Lenders benefit from faster decisions, fewer errors, and reduced per-loan costs.
“The mortgage industry has long been reliant on disjointed tools and manual intervention, leading to costly delays and errors,” said Diane Yu, CEO and co-founder of Tidalwave. “With this new funding, we’re supercharging the buildout of intelligent AI agents, allowing us to get these tools into the hands of lenders and borrowers faster than ever.”
Yu emphasized that accelerating adoption is not only about efficiency but also about improving the experience for all stakeholders, including loan officers and first-time homebuyers.
Permanent Capital’s Co-founder sees Tidalwave’s approach as transformative to the industry.
“After evaluating all companies in this category, Tidalwave stood out for its powerful application of real AI to solve a massive, industry-wide problem,” said Jason Duboe, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Permanent Capital. “Their technology is already delivering measurable impact, and we are confident in their vision to transform the mortgage landscape.”
D.R. Horton’s participation as both investor and customer further validates Tidalwave’s vision for an AI-powered mortgage future.
“This partnership represents an alignment of vision, innovation, and execution,” said Mark Winter, CEO of DHI Mortgage, a D.R. Horton subsidiary. “Together we will transform lending for years to come.”
Borrower Accessibility and Speed
In addition to lender benefits, Tidalwave is developing borrower-focused features such as AI-powered guidance and dedicated support for Spanish-speaking applicants.
These enhancements make the mortgage process more inclusive and ensure information is clear, consistent, and accurate, eliminating manual bottlenecks.
Tidalwave facilitates the path to homeownership—an advantage in competitive markets where timing can make or break a deal.
A New Era for Mortgage Technology
Tidalwave’s agentic AI now provides a practical way to deliver the speed, precision, and borrower experience that today’s homebuyers expect.
If Tidalwave achieves its goals, lengthy mortgage cycles and excessive paperwork could soon be a thing of the past.
