Routesense

Round closed 01/15/2026.

Overview

Routesense is building the intelligence layer for modern payment infrastructure - a unified data and analytics platform that connects fragmented merchant processing systems, providing acquirers and processors with a clearer view of their portfolios.

By bringing together data that's typically siloed across providers, RouteSense helps payment teams predict and mitigate risk, stay ahead of compliance requirements, and make smarter, faster real-time routing decisions. The result is a more transparent, efficient, and resilient acquiring ecosystem built for scale.

Core Mission

Their core mission is to be the missing component in the payment stack, providing real-time intelligence, preventing unnecessary fees, and making payments predictable to be resilient for all parties in the acquiring stack - from merchants to banks.

Short-Term Goal: Finish the router MVP by the end of October, begin onboarding a few merchants and acquiring banks into its live pilot, and build its predictive analytics layer.

Long-Term Goal: Become the real-time data infrastructure layer within the payments ecosystem.

Pain Point

Today's payment systems were designed for batch processing, causing merchants and acquirers to often only see risk and performance issues after the fact. This delay can lead to lost processing accounts for merchants and regulatory penalties or VAMP/SAFE program exposure for acquirers.

Solution

RouteSense addresses this challenge by consolidating transaction and dispute data from gateways, processors, and networks into a single, real-time dashboard of merchant account health. The platform forecasts compliance risks, helps avoid account closures, and intelligently optimizes routing to maximize account longevity.

Differentiating Factor

Routesense's advantage comes from more than AI integration for real-time intelligence; the real advantage is that the platform is built for acquirer-grade visibility and merchant control. This is accomplished through the platform's data normalization layer, MIDAS scoring model, and being aware of account health for routing.

Target Market

Their target market is merchants, ISOs, and acquirers in the payment processing sector.

Merchants and acquirers face differentiated pain points, but are all stem from a lack of an intelligence layer within their processing systems.

Merchants prioritize reliability, continuous operation, and efficiency. RouteSense helps them direct transactions to the most stable and cost-effective merchant accounts, minimizing shutdowns and reducing the likelihood of authorization failures.

Acquirers and ISOs prioritize regulatory compliance and portfolio risk management. RouteSense provides them with real-time monitoring, simulated underwriting, and early warnings for accounts approaching network limits.

Sector: B2B FinTech

Competitors:

Routesense is in a "white-market," meaning it operates proactively to protect and optimize legitimate merchant accounts rather than reacting to fraud or handling accounts in riskier markets.

IXO Pay and Primer focus on payment orchestration rather than providing insights into risk or compliance.

Sardine and Alloy specialize in fraud prevention and KYC automation, not merchant account health analytics.

Stripe functions as a payment processor and possible integration partner, rather than a direct competitor.

More comparable solutions include Verifi and Ethoca (reactive tools) and Feedzai, FICO Falcon, or Palantir (data intelligence platforms).

Key Metrics

Stage: Pre-Seed

Next Steps:

1. Infrastructure Expansion: Build a Dynamic routing engine V2, create an acquiring bank SaaS platform, integrate with said banks, and user interface uplift.

2. Scaling & Distribution: Build an ISO dashboard, integrate ISO and POS partners, and produce an AI routing.

3. Platform Maturity: Real-time routing optimization, integrate merchant profitability model, embed analytics for processors and banks.

ARR: Pre-Revenue

Market Size

TAM: ~$6 trillion - Global Card-Not-Present Transaction Amount (growing 30% YoY).

SAM: ~$8.4B - CNP merchants processing compliance + intelligent routing opportunities we can reach through direct sales and partnerships in the next 5 years.

SOM: ~$420M - Near-term target share within 3-5 years based on current go-to-market capacity, early traction, and strategic partnerships.

Round Information

Valuation: $10M Post-Money

Round Status: Actively Raising

Instrument: SAFE

Round Size: $2.5M

Already Raised: $1.1M

Ideal Investor: VC that understands FinTech and can open doors for us.

Funding Allocation

50% - Technology and infastructure

30% - GTM and PR

20% - Branding development and brand partnerships

About The Team

First Founder Background:

Stephen Martin - Co-Founder & CEO

Stephen Martin is an experienced payments operator and product strategist with decades of merchant and acquirer relationships. He began his career at Martin Howe Associates, focusing on merchant processing solutions, pricing, and client growth, and later supported expansion efforts at PMT Systems through strategic acquisitions. Most recently, he served as a Product Manager at Tetrafx Inc., managing studio operations for shows including Barney and NBC News.

Second Founder Background:

Colin Martin - Co-Founder & COO

Colin Martin serves as the operations and growth lead, driving direct merchant adoption and managing investor relations. With hands-on experience in investment through his internship at 272 Capital, Colin brings a strong analytical perspective to the company's growth strategy. At the University of Texas at Austin, he has balanced academic rigor with leadership roles in multiple campus organizations, applying those skills to expand the company's reach, build strategic partnerships, and lead fundraising initiatives.

Third Founder Background:

Robert Matthews - CTO

Robert Matthews is a veteran data and engineering leader with over two decades of experience building and scaling enterprise-grade systems. He played a key role in developing large-scale dispute and compliance platforms at Equifax and Midigator, leading high-growth engineering teams and driving product innovation across data, payments, and risk management. In addition to his corporate experience, Robert is the founder of Tubby Data Analytics, where he applies his expertise to deliver secure, scalable, and practical solutions for complex data challenges.

Founder Interest:

Colin is a first-time founder and is interested in connecting with fintech VC investors to build out his round.

Fun Fact:

"RouteSense's founding team represents three generations in payments - our family has built, scaled, and sold ISOs. The company was founded to solve the same operational and compliance pain points that merchants and acquirers have faced for decades." - Colin Martin

Routesense is headquartered in Dallas, TX