Wildcat Labs raises $3.5 million in seed extension round to grow its undercollaterized lending protocol

Wildcat Labs, the developer of the Wildcat lending protocol, announced on Friday that it has raised $3.5 million in a seed extension round led by Robot Ventures to help scale onchain undercollateralized credit adoption.

"We are thrilled to invest in Wildcat as they tackle one of the biggest problems in DeFi — undercollateralized lending," Robot Ventures partner Anirudh Pai said in a statement shared with The Block. "Its growth is testament to how much demand there is for cheap and safe private credit." 

Triton Capital, Polygon Ventures, Safe Foundation, Hyperithm, Hermeneutic Investments, and Kronos Research also participated in the round alongside angel investors including Fei protocol founder Joey Santoro, Vyper core contributor Charles Cooper, and Ink founder Andrew Koller.

"Undercollateralized lending has long been a perennial challenge for DeFi. By allowing trusted borrowers to create their own bespoke markets, Wildcat moves beyond the rigid limitations of overcollateralization and creates a foundational layer for truly scalable and capital-efficient credit within DeFi," Kronos Ventures General Partner Jason Brannigan added.

The round, structured as a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE), opened in April and closed in August, valuing Wildcat Labs at $35 million post-money, with investors acquiring a 10% stake, co-founder and CEO Laurence Day told The Block.

It brings Wildcat Labs' total fundraising to $5.3 million, with the company previously raising $750,000 in a pre-seed round from Wintermute Ventures in May 2023, followed by a $1.1 million seed round, primarily from participants via Cobie's angel investor platform Echo , between July and August 2024.

The new capital will be used further to integrate the Wildcat protocol into the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, opening up broader access to private credit markets by bringing them onchain. More specifically, it will be used to expand Wildcat Labs' current team of four employees and three contractors, particularly on the engineering and business development fronts, alongside the creation of new types of markets and mechanisms to unlock high-quality yield opportunities.

The latest raise provides about two years of runway for Wildcat Labs after it fills the four planned roles — two of which the firm is hiring for now — notwithstanding revenue generation, as it's already profitable, Day said.

What is Wildcat?

Wildcat was co-founded by Crypto Twitter mainstay Laurence Day and Indexed Finance's Dillon Kellar in 2023, with Wintermute's Evgeny Gaevoy also joining as a "silent" partner, built to try and solve the issue of undercollateralized, pseudonymous crypto lending.

Unlike traditional platforms, Wildcat does not underwrite loans itself. It lets borrowers parameterize nearly every aspect of a loan — from reserve ratios and withdrawal cycles to whitelisting lenders — reflecting its "free market" ethos. Additionally, unlike most existing DeFi credit protocols, such as Aave, Euler, and Compound, Wildcat loans can be undercollateralized.

Wildcat generates revenue by adding a protocol fee of 5% of the APR offered by borrowers in their markets. For example, if a borrower offers a 10% yield, they pay 10.5%, Day explained to The Block.

"Wildcat was created in order to allow the world the opportunity to participate in private credit markets typically restricted to inner circles, on terms visible to all," Day said in the statement. "Capital leverage is the heart of the modern world, and credit expansion — which increases liquidity available to be utilised in markets both onchain and offchain — fuels the growth of the overall industry. Wildcat is one of the final pieces that allows DeFi to truly claim that it has formed a parallel financial system."

Day previously positioned Wildcat as a response to the credit opacity that fueled collapses like Terra and FTX, arguing that bringing private credit activity onchain makes risks more visible. In other words, the protocol is essentially an attempt to solve the problem of creating credit scores for onchain entities, though it is primarily aimed at institutional players such as funds, market makers, and DAOs, rather than retail users.

"I imagine that Wildcat will predominantly just be used to borrow stablecoins," Day told The Block earlier this year. "But if you wanted to borrow something exotic, you could set up a market for Milady or CRV LP tokens, if you wished."

Wildcat has facilitated customizable undercollateralized credit lines for borrowers such as Wintermute, Hyperithm, Selini Capital, Amber Group, and Keyrock. It has also supported emergency bridge financing after crypto protocol hacks and enabled pre-market token price speculation through a fixed yield on the Plasma (XPL) sale.

Wildcat said it currently handles $150 million in outstanding credit, with over twice that amount — $368 million — originated since launch, following a major uptick after its generalized V2 release on the Ethereum mainnet in February.

Asked about any potential token plans, Day declined to comment.