Participated · Equity · Feb 2022

Teller is a San Francisco, CA–based DeFi protocol that enables unsecured digital asset lending and borrowing. Led by founder and CEO Ryan Berkun, the protocol uses an open order book model to allow participants to share commonly used off-chain data with on-chain loan requests. Marketplaces and lending platforms can integrate the Teller Protocol to fill loan requests, enabling lenders to choose loans based on appended borrower data. The design widens the pool of potential market participants in digital asset lending and aims to accelerate DeFi adoption. Teller’s model facilitates development of new cryptocurrency loan products tied to both off-chain and on-chain credit signals. Financially, the company announced a $6.85M strategic funding round led by Blockchain Capital with participation from several institutional and angel investors. Teller is a San Francisco–based blockchain project incubated by a16z’s crypto startup school that is building the first algorithmic credit-risk protocol for DeFi. Its core product, the Teller Protocol, will let developers create unsecured lending markets on Ethereum that interoperate with centralized data providers and credit bureaus to calculate consumer credit risk. Complementary components include Teller Cloud, a distributed cloud network of independent nodes that aggregate financial information, and tooling for developers to propose and deploy credit risk algorithms (CRAs). Teller described Autonomous Teller Markets (ATMs) to hold lent capital in smart contracts and t-tokens for liquidity providers to capture accrued interest. The company plans to bridge legacy credit scoring systems like Equifax into decentralized lending to lower collateral requirements and broaden mainstream access to crypto loans. Teller announced a $1 million seed raise to fund development as it targets disruption of traditional debt markets and growth in the DeFi lending space.