DeFi
Term Labs, Inc. Announces $5.5 Million in Strategic Funding to Bring Stability and Predictability to Blockchain Lending
SAN DIEGO, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Term Labs, Inc., a leader in blockchain research and development, is proud to announce the closing of a strategic funding round totaling $5.5 million. This brings the company’s cumulative funding to date to $8 million. Electric Capital led the round, with participation from Maelstrom (Arthur Hayes), Ava Labs Blizzard Fund, Arete Capital, Inception, Delta Blockchain Fund and others. Angel investors including Ether.fi Founder and CEO Mike Silagadze, GP and Paper Ventures Founder Danish Chaudhry, Neoclassic Capital Founder and Managing Partner Steve Lee, Up-Only co-host Ledger Status, Into The Ether podcast co-host Eric Conner, and The Edge podcast co-host DeFi Dad also joined the funding round.
Term Finance is the first DeFi fixed-rate lending protocol to operate efficiently at institutional scale. Since its inception last year, Term Finance has managed over $100 million in volume through its auction-based fixed-rate lending platform, with consistent weekly clearing volumes in the seven-figure range. Its auction-based mechanism has proven effective in setting fair rates, consistently clearing between the bid and borrow rates on competing variable-rate lending protocols. As a result, borrowers on Term have saved hundreds of thousands in interest, while lenders have earned hundreds of thousands more.
“The protocol’s success in early institutional adoption is largely due to its focus on security, transparency, and economic risk mitigation,” said Dion Chu, Founder and CEO of Term Finance. Term Finance mitigates contagion and concentration risk by using isolated and modular collateral pools and implements oracle protection measures with staleness and zero-price checks, fallback oracles, and sequencer availability checks for future rollup deployments. To verify the integrity and correctness of the implementation, Term Finance underwent multiple code audits, traceable via its public GitHub repository and verified on-chain, and performed formal verification using the Certora CLI.
“We chose to continue our support by leading this funding round not only because we believe the fixed-rate lending space has vast market potential rooted in traditional finance, but also because Term Finance stands out as the only protocol enabling on-chain fixed-rate lending at scale. There is a demonstrated demand for fixed-rate borrowing versus DeFi native assets, and the rise of RWA and tokenization represents a large untapped opportunity for future growth,” said Ken Deeter, General Partner at Electric Capital.
Earlier this year, in partnership with MatrixPort, Term Finance piloted two auctions supported by permissioned RWAs, a market that McKinsey predicts will reach $2 trillion by 2030.
As part of its ongoing commitment to fostering community engagement, Term Labs is launching an invite-only rewards program to reward early adopters for their participation in the protocol. Early supporters of the protocol have already been granted access to the program and do not need an invitation to participate. Season 1 of the rewards program is expected to run from summer to early fall, providing users with ample opportunity to engage and benefit from their contributions to the protocol.
“We are committed to rewarding our community for their active participation and dedication to the growth and success of our protocol,” said Dion Chu. “This latest funding round, combined with the rewards program, will help us capitalize on our initial traction and drive the next wave of adoption, advancing our mission to ensure predictability and stability in the DeFi ecosystem.”
About Term Labs
Term Labs is a blockchain research and development company dedicated to building robust, transparent, and scalable fixed-rate lending solutions on the blockchain. The founding team’s combined experience in finance and big tech is the foundation of their innovative approach to defi solutions. Their founders have a proven track record of managing over $1 billion in portfolios on both the sell-side and buy-side at Citibank, Morgan Stanley, DE Shaw, and other institutions, as well as building interest rate benchmarks on exchanges that have achieved trillions in volume. They also have strong technical experience, including within the Amazon blockchain group, Bloomberg, and Planet Labs.
Media Contact Billy Welch media@termfinance.io