Tech
A quietly growing machine-learning startup based in Terrigal is building browser-independent data tools that have caught the attention of Sydney investors — and could reshape how the region's businesses handle privacy.
Tideline AI opened its doors on the Central Coast 14 months ago with six employees and a lease on a converted warehouse space at 18 Kurrawyba Avenue in Terrigal. This week it announced a $4.2 million seed round led by Sydney-based Blackwattle Ventures, with participation from the NSW Government's Jobs for NSW co-investment program. The raise is the largest first-round funding secured by a Central Coast tech company in at least three years, according to figures held by the Gosford-based Central Coast Innovation Hub.
The timing is not accidental. Global anxieties about browser data collection and surveillance-grade software have sharpened corporate appetite for tools that process sensitive information locally, on-device, rather than routing it through offshore servers. Businesses from financial planners in Erina to medical practices along the Wyong Road corridor have begun asking harder questions about where their client data actually lives. Tideline's core product — a lightweight analytics suite that runs inference models inside a company's own network perimeter — is designed precisely for that concern.
The Central Coast Innovation Hub at 4 Warabrook Boulevard, Gosford, has been tracking Tideline since the startup graduated from its six-month accelerator cohort in April 2025. Hub director programs manager Sarah Callum described the company in a July 2 briefing note as "the standout commercial prospect from our 2025 intake," the first time the Hub has singled out a graduate that way in its four-year history. The Hub currently supports 34 active member companies, spanning agtech, healthtech and enterprise software.
Tideline's three co-founders previously worked at Atlassian's Sydney campus before relocating north. They settled in Terrigal partly for lifestyle reasons, but the move also dropped their monthly office costs by roughly 60 percent compared with equivalent space in Sydney's CBD. That saving has been redirected into engineering headcount: the company now employs 19 people full-time, 14 of whom live within 30 kilometres of Gosford. The University of Newcastle's Central Coast campus at Ourimbah has supplied four of those engineers through its industry placement program, which runs in partnership with the NSW Department of Education.
The $4.2 million round values Tideline at approximately $21 million pre-money — modest by capital-city standards, but significant for a region where most startups exit or relocate before reaching a Series A. Annual recurring revenue hit $780,000 in the financial year ending June 30, 2026, driven largely by contracts with three mid-sized accounting firms and a pathology group that operates across multiple Central Coast sites.
Tideline plans to use the new capital to double engineering headcount by December 2026 and open a second office — tentatively earmarked for the Gosford CBD near the Mann Street precinct — to accommodate growth without abandoning the region. The company has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Central Coast Local Health District to pilot its on-premise data tools within two district-operated facilities, a deal that could be worth up to $300,000 in its first year if performance benchmarks are met.
For local businesses watching from the sidelines, there are practical steps worth taking now. The Central Coast Innovation Hub runs a free "AI Readiness" workshop series — the next session is scheduled for July 22 at the Gosford hub — designed specifically for small and medium enterprises that want to evaluate tools like Tideline's without committing to a contract. Registration closes July 14. Companies that complete the workshop are eligible for a subsidised 90-day pilot of qualifying local software providers under the NSW Small Business Digital Adaptation Program, which allocates up to $1,500 per eligible business.
Tideline is not the only story in the region's tech calendar this month, but it is the clearest illustration of a shift that has been building quietly for several years: serious engineering talent staying put on the Central Coast rather than filtering south to Sydney, and serious money beginning to follow them here.
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Published by The Daily Central Coast