DebtDAO

Debt DAO operates as a permissionless, onchain marketplace specializing in crypto-native credit, established in 2021 by co-founders Kiba Gateaux and Chris Walker. The founding team's background merges technology and finance, with experience from entities like ConsenSys and JP Morgan, which informed the company's direction. Walker, the non-technical co-founder, previously worked at JP Morgan focusing on real estate finance and mortgage originators, while Gateaux, the technical co-founder, has contributed to several DAOs, including Index Coop. The idea for Debt DAO originated from observing DAOs paying contributors with their native tokens, creating an asset-liability mismatch due to token price volatility.

The company's primary offering is a coordination layer for the debt funding ecosystem within Decentralized Finance (DeFi). It targets cryptonative entities such as DAOs and protocols, particularly those in a growth stage with existing on-chain revenues. The business model centers on providing revenue-based financing, which allows borrowers to secure funding without selling equity or providing collateral. Instead, they repay lenders with a predetermined percentage of their on-chain cash flows. This is facilitated by their proprietary Spigot smart contract, which can escrow a borrower's revenue streams to automate repayments, providing trustless protection for lenders. In the event of a default, the Spigot can direct 100% of the cashflows to the lender.

In July 2022, Debt DAO successfully raised $3.6 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by Dragonfly Capital and saw participation from other notable investors including GSR, The LAO, Daedalus, Fasanara Capital, and angel investors like Balaji Srinivasan. This capital was earmarked for team expansion, including hiring Solidity developers and front-end engineers, and to further develop their product suite. A key milestone for the company was facilitating the first-ever debt financing round for a DAO, providing a $2.5 million revolving line of credit to Redacted, a meta-governance asset management DAO. The platform officially launched on the mainnet in April 2023 after a three-month beta testing period.

Keywords: Decentralized Finance, DeFi, crypto credit, onchain marketplace, revenue-based financing, DAO financing, Spigot smart contract, permissionless lending, crypto-native credit, digital asset lending, Kiba Gateaux, Chris Walker, Dragonfly Capital, blockchain debt, structured credit, DeFi protocols, trustless lending, token-based financing, decentralized autonomous organization, credit protocol, on-chain cashflow