Dharma Labs

Dharma Labs, Inc. operated as a blockchain-based platform for decentralized finance (DeFi), initially focusing on peer-to-peer lending and borrowing of cryptocurrencies. Founded in 2017 by Nadav Hollander and Brendan Forster, the San Francisco-based company emerged from the Y Combinator startup accelerator's Summer 2017 batch. Hollander, who served as CEO, brought experience as a software engineer from Coinbase and Google, with an educational background in computer science from Stanford University. This experience in both the crypto and traditional tech worlds shaped Dharma's core mission to build user-friendly systems that hide the underlying complexities of blockchain technology.

The company's foundational product was the Dharma Protocol, an open-source set of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain designed to standardize the issuance and administration of tokenized debt. This protocol allowed any two parties globally to engage in a loan agreement without a traditional financial intermediary, aiming to create more transparent and efficient debt markets. The business model was centered on facilitating these transactions and building an ecosystem of users, including individual borrowers and lenders, as well as institutional clients like high-volume crypto traders.

Over its history, Dharma Labs evolved. Initially a protocol for developers to build lending products, the company pivoted to a more consumer-facing application. This led to the creation of the Dharma Smart Wallet, a mobile application that simplified DeFi for mainstream users. The wallet featured gas-free transactions, where Dharma subsidized the network fees, and allowed users to connect their bank accounts to easily buy, sell, and earn interest on cryptocurrencies. Dharma's operations were supported by significant venture capital, raising over $7 million in a Series A round in February 2019, with backing from prominent investors like Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Green Visor Capital, and Y Combinator.

In a significant strategic shift for the founders and a culminating event for the company, Dharma Labs was acquired by OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, in a deal announced in January 2022. The acquisition led to the sunsetting of the Dharma wallet application by February 2022. As part of the acquisition, Nadav Hollander became the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of OpenSea, and Brendan Forster was appointed as Head of Strategy, bringing their expertise in Web3 and user-friendly product development to the rapidly growing NFT space. Keywords: Dharma Labs, Nadav Hollander, Brendan Forster, decentralized finance, DeFi, crypto lending, peer-to-peer lending, Ethereum smart contracts, Dharma Protocol, tokenized debt, crypto wallet, OpenSea acquisition, Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, blockchain lending, crypto borrowing, Dharma Smart Wallet, Web3