OpenDebt raises AUD $2 million to expand AI debt recovery

OpenDebt has raised AUD $2 million in a pre-seed funding round backed by Blackbird Ventures and Antler. The funding will support expansion in Australia and early partnership work in the United States.

The Sydney-based start-up develops artificial intelligence software for debt recovery teams at lenders and collection agencies. Its system handles customer conversations across voice, SMS, and email, with rules requiring identity checks before disclosing any debt information. It also escalates cases to a human specialist when a customer shows signs of hardship or asks to speak to a person.

OpenDebt is expanding deployments with Australian lenders and collection agencies, including a national collection agency where autonomous agents are already handling conversations. It targets accounts that are often too small or costly for traditional recovery efforts, such as buy now pay later balances, payday loans, utility bills, healthcare debts and credit card arrears.

The company was founded in Sydney by Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Norman Yan and Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Jonas Tischer. The pair initially built the business around compliance monitoring and support for human agents before moving into autonomous collection conversations.

Yan said the business was built to address the range of circumstances behind missed payments.

"An unpaid account doesn't tell you why someone hasn't paid. Some people are ready to resolve it but want a simpler way to do that. Others are experiencing hardship, have a question about the balance, or need to speak with someone. OpenDebt exists to help lenders and collection agencies respond to those different circumstances, cost effectively and at scale. That means straightforward resolution through voice AI agents or other digital channels where appropriate, and a clear path to a trained person when someone needs help. Making those conversations more affordable makes it possible to offer better support, and more efficiently recover debt even on small accounts," said Norman Yan, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of OpenDebt.

Debt collection rules are embedded in the software's workflow. Customers are told at the start that they are speaking with AI, while disputes, complaints and hardship cases are passed to client staff rather than handled by the system.

Compliance focus

That focus reflects the founders' backgrounds. Yan previously worked in banking and collections, including roles at Westpac, Citigroup and National Credit Management. Tischer built software and engineering teams at ThoughtWorks and Lyrebird Health, where he worked on AI in clinical settings.

OpenDebt said its technology is configured around both regulation and each client's internal policies and systems. The software can negotiate only within terms approved by the client, send secure payment links and write outcomes back into the client's systems.

Yan said his experience in the sector shaped the company's approach to the product.

"After more than 15 years working at one of Australia's biggest banks and for one of Australia's largest collection agencies, we understand the importance of taking a compliance and consumer-first approach to debt recovery. Scaling expertise and judgement is central to OpenDebt's technology, with every customer receiving the same level of support, whether theirs is the first call of the day or the ten thousandth," said Yan.

The start-up argues that debt recovery is constrained by staffing pressures as agencies and lenders deal with more overdue balances than existing teams can manage. It also points to high turnover in collections roles and the emotional strain of repeated customer contact.

Tischer said building reliable systems for regulated conversations involved more than making software sound natural.

"Getting an AI agent to speak naturally is only one part of the challenge. It needs to work with accurate account information, stay within the client's approved terms and respond appropriately when someone raises a dispute or reveals financial difficulty. We've built on the compliance and quality framework we developed supporting debt recovery specialists. We use that to assess how the AI handles conversations, where it needs to stop and bring in a specialist, and whether the handover gives that person the context they need. That's the work behind making these conversations reliable at scale," said Tischer.

Investor backing

Blackbird and Antler said the founders' sector experience and the company's early customer traction underpinned their support for the round. OpenDebt said it has signed multiple ASX-listed customers within six months.

Samantha Wong, Partner at Blackbird, pointed to the sequence in which the business was built.

"Norman brings insider knowledge, while Jonas has the technical ambition to reimagine how the industry works. That combination got us excited. With OpenDebt, Norman and Jonas built the compliance framework before they built the AI. They've found a way to reach accounts the industry had quietly written off because they simply cost too much to pursue, delivering a standout AI solution in a market that is notoriously hard to build for. We have huge conviction in this team and their future. We are proud to back their ambition to build a new model for debt recovery, founded in Australia with serious global potential," said Wong.

Michael Kron, Partner at Antler Australia, said the company had moved quickly in a tightly controlled sector.

"Norman and Jonas deeply understand a problem financial services has ignored for too long, collection agents with increasing expectations of speed and reliability, yet a tooling gap to guide them in real-time. The OpenDebt team has a deep edge, extensive financial services experience and has moved at impressive speed. Their vision has quickly evolved from agent-assist for collection to an autonomous AI-native debt collection technology, acquiring multiple ASX-listed customers in just six months - a top-tier pace in a highly regulated and compliance-focused sector," said Kron.

OpenDebt said the US is one market under review as it looks beyond Australia. It cited New York Fed data showing about AUD $1.2 trillion, equivalent to USD $880 billion, in household debt balances at some stage of delinquency at the end of June 2026.

"We believe AI will fundamentally change how debt recovery conversations happen. Our ambition is to make a consistent, responsive experience available at a scale that hasn't been possible before, while helping specialists focus their judgement where it matters most. We're building towards that in Australia and are excited about how it can translate to the US and other markets too," said Yan.