How the VC unearthed a hat trick in Toowoomba that is helping prepare businesses for DOGE era

Tidal Ventures has led a $2m raise for Toowoomba-based Tendl, an AI tool designed to accelerate the tendering process and help businesses navigate the ‘DOGE era’.

Tidal Ventures principal Fee Barry says Tendl’s Laurie Nicol is three founders in one.

Tidal Ventures believes it has scored a hat trick with Laurie Nicol, the Toowoomba-based founder of Tendl, an artificial intelligence platform that is designed for the “DOGE era” as governments slash spending.

Mr Nicol is an economist, engineer and now entrepreneur and Tidal Ventures has led a $2m raising to accelerate his company’s global expansion.

He has built a tool to accelerate the tendering process from days or weeks to under an hour.

“Extrapolating that for a typical supplier submitting multiple tenders over a year, you’re looking at tens of thousands of dollars in savings,” Mr Nicol said.

Tenders account for about 13 per cent of gross domestic product across OECD countries, and $99bn in Australian government procurement last year. But the stakes are getting higher.

Elon Musk is unleashing his razor gang across US federal agencies as part of his new role heading the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is following suit, with plans to sack up to 3000 public servants to save “several billion dollars” and improve the state’s dire finances.

Elon Musk is relishing his new role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“We’ve got customers that are tendering across the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US already. So definitely, the US is a very big focus in terms of the market. There’s the likelihood that we’re going to see a lot of things coming up for tender over the next 12 months into the next four years,” Mr Nicol said.

“There’s a big focus on government efficiency and accountability right now. We reduce the cost across the whole market, improving competition by cutting at-risk costs for suppliers.

“AI allows us to automate every step of the tendering workflow in ways that weren’t possible before.”

Companies have been using AI to slash tender times since OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, sparking the generative AI boom. John Holland – the company behind major projects including Sydney Football Stadium and Melbourne’s West Gate Tunnel – has used Microsoft Copilot to transform their operations from tender to design and construction.

Tidal Ventures principal Fee Barry and Tendl chief executive and founder Laurie Nicol.

But Tidal Ventures – which has led a $2m capital raising for Tendl, with participation from Startmate, 77 partners, Brisbane Angels and Aussie Angels – says it is different.

“We have a pretty strong thesis on Laurie being the person who is actually going to win in this space,” Tidal Ventures principal Fee Barry said.

“Because of Laurie’s background being both an economist and also an engineer, he has this ability to traverse between big picture thinking and getting ­really deep into the detail of things. That’s a quality that you don’t really come across that often.

“You typically need a team of one, two or three founders to ­really make up that profile – and we found it in a solo founder.”

Mr Nicol said the launch of China’s low-cost AI model, DeepSeek, showed it was possible for smaller companies to take on Silicon Valley titans.

Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan plans to sack up to 3000 government workers to save ‘several billion dollars’. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

“DeepSeek proves what smaller companies can achieve in the AI space. With a relatively modest budget, focused companies like Tendl can deliver amazing performance without spending billions on AI training.

“We’re leveraging this to get powerful AI technology into users’ hands and save companies thousands of hours annually on tendering.”

Mr Nicol said automating more of the process allowed companies to tender for more projects, increasing their chances of landing lucrative ­contracts.

“Often what you’ll ask people is ‘well, why didn’t you go to that tender?’ And they say, ‘well, I just didn’t have time. I’ve got all these other projects I’m working on’. They don’t get time to go for a tender, even if it might be a good fit for their business.

“What we’re really seeing with Tendl is people are changing their behaviour, and they’re doing more tenders. They’re able to go for more things that might be a great fit, because they’re not having to make that same kind of upfront time investment.”