Arkis, a DeFi lending protocol, has raised USD 2.2 million in pre-seed funding led by Gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from G1 Ventures, Blocklabs, and Roosh Ventures.

Arkis, having successfully concluded a private beta transaction phase in October 2023, is preparing for a public launch soon. Although the company is currently focused on Ethereum, it plans to expand into Arbitrum and Polygon.

Arkis offers a DeFi platform that provides undercollateralized loans to DeFi hedge funds and traders. Users can collateralize their on-chain trading positions across a number of blockchains and receive leverage for asset valuations, custom positions, and on-chain margin accounts. The platform leverages an on-chain risk engine that enables asset-specific valuations with cross-margining. Arkis also claims that its cross-chain liquidation planning reduces the danger of hacks by isolating collateral and leverage accounts. 

Analyst QuickTake: DeFi lending has seen growing levels of activity in the last four months with a number of startups raising funding. These include Kasu, Curvance , Term Structure Labs , and Versifi , which raised USD 3 million, USD 3.6 million , USD 4.3 million , and USD 10 million , respectively. Although investor interest is growing, undercollateralized lending remains a relatively risky segment within the wider industry—with formerly large companies like Celsius only recently beginning to recover from bankruptcy . Arkis aims to differentiate itself with its on-chain risk engine to improve credit risk for lenders.