Wildcat Labs, creator of the Wildcat undercollateralized lending protocol, announced it has raised $3,5 million in a seed round led by Robot Ventures, reaching a post-money valuation of $35 million. The new funding brings the company's total raised to $5,3 million since its founding in 2023.
According to Laurence Day, co-founder and CEO of Wildcat Labs, the funds will be used to integrate the protocol into Ethereum's DeFi ecosystem, expand the engineering and business team, and develop new on-chain private credit markets.
“Wildcat was created to allow the world the opportunity to participate in private credit markets, normally restricted to insiders, on terms visible to all”
stated.
The round also included participation from funds such as Triton Capital, Polygon Ventures, Safe Foundation, Hyperithm, Hermeneutic Investments, and Kronos Research, as well as angel investors including Joey Santoro (Fei), Charles Cooper (Vyper), and Andrew Koller (Ink). Jason Brannigan, partner at Kronos Ventures, noted:
"Undercollateralized lending has been a perennial challenge for DeFi. By enabling credible borrowers to create their own custom markets, Wildcat overcomes the rigid limitations of overcollateralization and creates a foundational layer for truly scalable and capital-efficient lending in DeFi."
Founded by Laurence Day and Dillon Kellar of Indexed Finance, Wildcat emerged to address the lack of transparency in lending operations that contributed to collapses like those of Terra and FTX. Unlike traditional protocols like Aave and Compound, the platform allows borrowers to configure their own terms, including collateralizing less than the amount borrowed.
The protocol has already facilitated undercollateralized credit lines for companies such as Wintermute, Amber Group, Hyperithm, and Keyrock, accumulating $150 million in outstanding credit and over $368 million originated since the launch of its V2 version on Ethereum in February. Wildcat generates revenue by applying a 5% protocol fee on interest paid in each market, establishing itself as an innovative alternative in the decentralized credit sector.