Vaudit raises $7.3M to bring AI-powered audit intelligence to digital ad spend

Ad budgets are leaking money—and most companies don’t even know it. Vaudit, an ad fraud watchdog startup taking aim at billing discrepancies across digital ad platforms, has raised $7.3 million in seed funding to fix that blind spot.

The round was oversubscribed, with all previous investors joining in again. New backers include some big names: Omar Hamoui, who founded AdMob (later acquired by Google for $750 million), and Binh Tran, co-founder of Klout and General Partner at AVV.

Vaudit, previously known as BlokID, is pitching itself as a real-time audit engine for digital media. It scans ad campaigns 24/7, flags inconsistencies, and provides audit documentation that holds up under legal scrutiny. With companies under pressure to justify marketing spend, CEO Michael Hahn believes there’s a major opportunity in calling out the waste that’s been normalized.

“The online advertising industry has normalized waste and fraud for far too long, with clicks that don’t track, campaigns that overspend, and billing that goes unverified,” Hahn said.

The startup is already working with over 1,000 clients globally, including big names like Accenture, HP, Huawei, Panasonic, RE/MAX, and SAP. Since its late-2023 launch, Vaudit has audited more than 558 million advertising events and is currently reviewing over $150 million in annualized ad spend. In some cases, it’s found overcharges of up to 30%—an eyebrow-raising figure that’s hard to ignore.

Hamoui, now a partner at Mucker Capital (which led the seed round), sees Vaudit as tackling a problem that’s been hiding in plain sight. “Digital advertising has become too complex and too opaque. Mike and the Vaudit team are building a category-defining tool that will bring much-needed clarity and financial discipline to a space long overdue for accountability,” he said.

The new funding brings Vaudit’s total raise to $8.5 million, following an earlier $1.25 million pre-seed round. Along with Mucker Capital and AVV, other returning investors include AppWorks, Plug and Play, and Kyber Knight.

With 3$3.7M Funding, Vaudit Aims to Help Brands Reclaim Wasted Ad Dollars

Vaudit is positioning itself as a missing layer in digital media—sitting between brands and the platforms they pay, like Google and Meta. By reconciling billed amounts against actual delivery and traffic quality, the company gives clients leverage to dispute charges and push for refunds.

To help drive its next phase, Vaudit has brought on Piotr Korzeniowski as Chief Operating Officer. He previously led Piwik PRO to over $14 million in annual recurring revenue and scaled Clearcode to a successful exit. Korzeniowski said what drew him to Vaudit was its focus on something few others are looking at: the bill itself.

“While fraud prevention in adtech is an established category, no one has truly looked at the bill—scrutinizing whether platforms actually deliver on what they were set up to do,” Korzeniowski said.

Vaudit’s next move is to make its AI smarter and its workflows more hands-off. The company is working on agentic features that will allow the platform to not just monitor, but automatically respond to detected waste or suspicious activity. The goal is to turn audits into active cost-saving processes.

For Hahn, the bigger picture is about changing how media buying works. “Anyone spending money on digital ads deserves full visibility into where their dollars go and the power to hold platforms accountable when they’re charged for AI traffic instead of real people,” Tran said.

Vaudit plans to extend its coverage beyond just Google and Meta to include mobile in-app traffic and newer ad platforms like TikTok, X, and Amazon. But the mission remains the same: shine a light on a part of digital advertising that’s long been left unchecked.