Treehouse Finance Secures $400M Valuation in Strategic Funding Round

Treehouse Finance, a decentralized finance startup specializing in fixed-income products, has successfully secured an undisclosed amount of funding in its latest strategic round, achieving a $400 million token valuation. This valuation represents the fully diluted valuation (FDV) of Treehouse's yet-to-launch native token, as stated by co-founder and CEO Brandon Goh. The funding round, structured as a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT), concluded late last year. Notably, Treehouse's previous seed round, which raised $18 million, was also structured as a SAFT and completed in March 2022.

The lead investor in this round is the venture arm of one of the largest life insurance and financial services firms, managing over $500 billion in assets. While the investor's name was not disclosed, it is speculated to be MassMutual Ventures, which also participated in Treehouse's seed round. Other notable participants in the latest funding round include angel investors such as Guy Young from Ethena, Darius Sit from QCP Capital, Rich Teo from Paxos, Matthew Tan from Etherscan, Jordi Alexander from Selini Capital, and Michael Ashby from Algoquant, formerly of Point72 Asset Management.

Goh emphasized that the new funding round was intentionally kept lean and strategic to onboard high-impact contributors, aligning with Treehouse's next phase of growth. The focus was on the quality of partnerships rather than the amount of capital raised. As part of the deal, the lead investor and one returning backer took board seats at Treehouse, although their identities were not disclosed.

Founded in 2021 and based in Singapore, Treehouse is developing infrastructure to bring fixed-income products to decentralized finance (DeFi). The traditional fixed-income market, including fixed-income derivatives, is worth over $600 trillion, five times the size of equities and commodities. Goh highlighted that DeFi has a significant opportunity to support products like bonds with purpose-built infrastructure. The crypto fixed-income market is underdeveloped due to missing infrastructure, and Treehouse aims to enable a new asset class by introducing benchmark rates to power massive product innovation and institutional capital into DeFi fixed-income markets.

Treehouse's core offerings include Decentralized Offered Rates (DOR) and tAssets (Treehouse Assets). DOR is a decentralized benchmark rate system for crypto, starting with ETH staking. It acts as crypto's LIBOR and SOFR, enabling standard pricing for fixed-income products and derivatives, and laying the foundation for a robust digital asset ecosystem. DOR aggregates data and forecasts from trading venues and experts into a transparent rate table, accessible via oracle. tAssets, on the other hand, are yield-generating instruments, starting with tETH, which launched last year. Users deposit ETH to receive tETH, which is redeemable for the original ETH plus yield. A smart contract dynamically optimizes between staking and interest rate arbitrage across EVM chains, ensuring yields comparable to native staking with additional returns from market inefficiencies.

Since launching tETH in September 2024, Treehouse's platform has attracted over 30,000 unique wallet holders and more than 120,000 ETH in deposits. Treehouse's business model is fee-based, including performance fees on tAssets and operator, panelist, and referencer fees related to its oracle-like systems. The DOR is currently in beta, with a mainnet launch targeted for June. Goh declined to comment on the timing of Treehouse's token launch alongside the mainnet.

Following the launch, Treehouse plans to establish an "eight-figure" ecosystem fund, or at least $10 million, to support adoption across both DeFi and institutional channels. The roadmap also includes expanding tAssets to other base assets and chains. Goh acknowledged that adoption and education remain key challenges, but expressed confidence in Treehouse's approach and team. Treehouse currently employs over 40 people, and Goh plans to thoughtfully scale headcount across ecosystem, regulatory, and growth teams. The startup may raise additional funds in the near future, although Goh stated that they are not keen on onboarding new investors at this time.