Vancouver-based Opal has announced $1.5 million USD in pre-seed funding to develop its expense management technology for advertising agencies.
The FinTech startup is developing an all-in-one software-as-a-service platform called Opal Spend that is designed to replace the fragmented, horizontal tools typically used by ad agencies and automate their back-office operations.
“We built Opal to be a modern financial backbone for agencies.”
Alex Steele, Opal
Opal founder and CEO Alex Steele launched the company last year to address billing headaches at his media buying agency, Easy Agency. During Steele’s years leading Easy Agency, the CEO juggled lots of back-office tools that didn’t integrate or communicate, which he said led to lots of time spent copying the same data into different products.
This experience spurred him to launch Opal, which helps ad agencies manage ad spending, accounting, invoicing, and contract management in one place through its Opal Spend software and associated credit card, which it launched yesterday.
“We built Opal to be a modern financial backbone for agencies—one that reduces friction from contract creation all the way through invoicing and payment,” Steele said in a statement.
Opal’s pre-seed round, which was raised via simple agreement for future equity, closed during the fourth quarter of 2024 and marks the startup’s first financing to date. It was led by Seattle’s Founders Co-op with support from Exit North Ventures, a Toronto FinTech fund launched last year by Canadian Fintech newsletter’s Tal Schwartz and his father, Canadian Lenders Association founder Gary Schwartz.
The company also counts Ian Crosby, co-founder and former CEO of Vancouver FinTech startups Bench and Teal—both recently acquired—among its investors.
“I’ve seen firsthand how Alex’s determination and technical talent have shaped Opal into a game-changing financial platform,” Crosby said in a statement. “It’s not just streamlining day-to-day finances—it’s redefining how agencies and brands manage ad spending, and I’m excited to support Opal’s growth.”
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Since its launch in February 2024 following a conversation with Crosby, Opal has grown to four employees, including Steele, two former X (previously Twitter) engineers, and a newly hired designer.
Steele told BetaKit that ad agencies have unique financial workflows that are not well-served by existing solutions, noting that general-purpose tools like DocuSign and QuickBooks often lead agencies to overpay for features they do not require, while general expense management platforms like Brex, Ramp, and Airbase also fail to meet agencies’ needs.
“Agencies manage client ad spend, meaning they either have to put expenses on their own cards and take on financial risk or ask clients to pay directly and lose cash-back benefits,” Steele said. “Opal is the first to solve this with a dedicated ad spend card that links client payments directly, eliminating credit risk while allowing agencies to retain cash-back rewards.”
Opal got its start with contract signing software and automated invoicing before seeing an opportunity to move into cards. Today, the startup makes most of its money from processing invoice payments, and a lesser amount from SaaS subscriptions, but going forward, Opal expects to generate revenue from the interchange as its credit card business grows.
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Ad agencies can issue new cards for each client to keep expenses segregated, and they can be programmed to limit spending to certain vendors and offer real-time visibility into expenses. Agencies that pay for expenses upfront and recoup costs later get more liquidity. Opal offers these credit lines through Capital OS.
Steele said the real innovation here is that Opal connects agencies with their client bank account so agency clients can pay off its ad-spend cards directly, not agencies themselves.
The startup plans to use this funding to bring Opal Spend to market, expand its capabilities, deepen its platform integrations, and hire across engineering, product, and customer success.
Opal ultimately aims to build all of the tools that agencies need, from ad attribution to full-stack banking and accounting as it works towards its long-term vision of becoming “the premier financial partner for media and creative agencies.”
UPDATE (02/25/25): This story has been updated to include additional information and commentary from Opal.
Feature image courtesy Opal.