Fundora: Gearing Up for the “Big Shift” to Peer-to-Peer Lending

We sat down with Marko Ruble, Founder of Fundora, an onchain peer-to-peer lending platform, to learn more about “The Big Shift,” his ambitious vision for empowering small businesses to access capital on their own terms.

Fundora uses Bulla Network and the Wyoming Frontier Token (FRNT) to source working capital for entrepreneurs.

Marko, thanks in advance for giving us some insight into Fundora!

Hey Jennifer! Thank you so much for all you do and thank you for creating some space for me to talk about Fundora.

Q: Can you tell us about your background and give us a brief description of Fundora, what it does and who(m) it was designed for?

A: Well, I live in the land of high altitudes and low multitudes — Wyoming. It’s a weird and wonderful place, a meeting point between the old world and the new. Wyoming is a frontier state in every sense, and right now it’s leading the charge into the frontiers of blockchain, Web3, crypto, and digital-asset innovation.

But as we look ahead to the next 75 years of the 21st century, we face perhaps the most important challenge of our time: economic diversification. Fundora was built with that challenge in mind — to empower small businesses, creators, and emerging industries with faster, fairer access to capital. A return so to speak to circular economies and regenerative communities, bound only by the hope and pursuit of prosperity…Our challenge is overcome by embracing and accelerating Radical Creativity!

#RadicalCreativity #BetheBank #Wyoming

Q: How and when did you get the idea for Fundora?

A: Fundora didn’t come from a single moment — it was a confluence of dust, guts, and luck.

Dust, because last spring while on a road trip to Cheyenne I watched the wind whip across an alkali flat north of Cheyenne. All those tiny grains being pushed and pulled by the Wyoming wind felt like tranches of tokens moving through a decentralized system — accelerated by curiosity and visible to anyone willing to look through some great token explorer in the sky. I imagined of those dust particles being Wyoming stabletokens being distributed across the prairie spreading wealth and nutrients to the ecosystem.

Guts, because building something new in this space requires conviction, courage, and a willingness to step into the unknown. Partnerships like the one with Bulla Network — pioneers in decentralized financial infrastructure — helped give us the confidence and technological grounding needed to build something ambitious, fast, and genuinely useful.

And luck, because I’ve been fortunate to meet passionate people across the Web3 ecosystem who embody the best of human innovation: cooperation, knowledge-sharing, support, and a shared drive to make the world better.

The idea crystallized during this road trip last spring. In the six-hour drive from Cheyenne back to Cody, during a pivotal conversation with Lisa Seim, Principal of Strategic Exchanges. We discussed the massive, untapped opportunity in peer-to-peer lending and the role the world’s first state-backed stable token — the Wyoming Stabletoken, soon known as the Frontier Token (FRNT) — could play in unlocking the future.

That’s when Fundora truly took shape — at the intersection of frontier geography, frontier courage, frontier technology… and a little heap of luck.

Q: What do you think is the biggest need that Fundora meets? Why do you think this need exists?

A: The biggest need Fundora meets is the need for economic diversification — not just in Wyoming, but in every community trying to build a resilient future. Dare I say the world over, all over the world, in a world where we are all connected.

Traditional finance wasn’t built for creators, early-stage entrepreneurs, or frontier markets. We need tools that unlock radical creativity and give small businesses and innovators access to capital when they need it. Fundora bridges that gap.

Q: How do small businesses get by now? What challenges do they face?

A: Most small businesses rely on the tools they already have — especially strong relationships with community banks. Retail shops, small manufacturers, and service providers hold down the fort with grit and local trust. And we love this! We love that we can fill in the early stage gaps to empower all relationships.

But a new frontier has emerged: the creator economy. If traditional small businesses are the body, the creator economy is the spirit — fast, inventive, and deeply influential.

And that’s where the Big Gap lies.

Creators and early-stage entrepreneurs often aren’t “bankable” yet, even though they have revenue, purchase orders, or accounts receivable. Peer-to-peer lending — especially through Fundora — unleashes that early-stage creativity and entrepreneurial momentum that would otherwise stall behind outdated financial systems.

It’s a modern “committee of commerce & correspondence” — a network of creators, businesses, and communities supporting each other in a new economic revolution.

Q: How does Fundora work and how does it help them? How is the FRNT involved and what advantages are there to using FRNT?

A: Fundora represents the Big Shift — peer-to-peer lending at its finest.

Here’s how it works:

Small businesses, creators, and nonprofits submit loan proposals.
Those proposals enter industry-specific liquidity pools.
Liquidity providers fund loans in the industries they know best — agriculture funds agriculture, creators fund creators, nonprofits fund nonprofits, and more.
Loans are backed by real accounts receivable, allowing early-stage businesses to grow without waiting for traditional financing.

In our closed beta, we’ve supported:

Produce Matrix in Kansas City, with creative build-out loans in agriculture
WHAT Fest Inc., a 501(c)(3) expanding access to the arts in rural Wyoming
Beyond the Range Podcast, amplifying stories of economic diversification
BenedRuble Sound LLC, a production company serving the Mountain West
Artists/creators Barron Von Boogey Pants, Heidi, Drift James, and The WHAT

FRNT — the Frontier Token — powers the rails. Using FRNT gives Fundora and its users:

Statute-mandated, proven liquidity
Regulatory clarity
Value stability
First-mover advantage
And the unmistakable frontier ingenuity that only Wyoming can bring

FRNT provides the rails. Fundora opens the road.

Q: How is Fundora uniquely qualified to offer this solution?

A: We’re uniquely qualified because we live that small-business life! That hussle. Those late nights/early mornings. Those heartaches and heartfelts often happening during the course of a single damn day! I cut my teeth in my entrepreneurial career as a small business owner, and many of my closest friends are small business owners. We understand the burdens and the victories. We built Fundora for people like us.

Our edge comes down to quicker, easier, built on trust — supported by:

Near-instant settlement using FRNT rails
Low overhead, giving borrowers lower rates and liquidity providers higher APYs. (Like hella low overhead!)
Simple, intuitive technology
Blockchain transparency baked into the system

Think of what LendingTree did for mortgages — Fundora is bringing that level of disruption to small-business and creator lending, backed by the world’s first state-supported stable token.

Q: Do you need to be in Wyoming to use Fundora? Are there plans to expand outside of Wyoming?

A: Not at all — you don’t need to be in Wyoming to use Fundora.biz. We’re a big tent in a tight vertical. Built in Wyoming, designed for everyone. Expansion isn’t a plan — it’s already happening. But in order to be a part of Fundora.biz you must be willing to embrace Radical Creativity. Radical Creativity within yourself AND throughout your community. You MUST be willing to share your Radical Creativity with others and be committed to making the world a better place one damn Frontier Token at a time!

Q: How do interested people get involved?

A: The easiest way is to DM me (Marko Ruble) on LinkedIn. You can also head over to beta.fundora.biz and explore — I dare you. While you’re there, join the Capital Club. We’re almost live, so now’s the time to jump in and claim your stake in the Big Shift.

Also, thank you again Jennifer! I don’t know why; but as we’ve gone through this Q&A, I can't stop thinking about July (2025) in Cheyenne when you, me and Lisa sat in that room at the state capital in front of the Wyoming Stabletoken Commission and demo’d how Fundora and Bulla works. We were the only demo that actually worked and was clearly understood by everyone in the room and online.

As the day unfolded it became very clear to me that what we are doing is orders of magnitude bigger than ourselves. At first I felt very scared under the weight of this prospect, but that feeling soon washed away as I drove home from the capital building, driving past small business upon small business- all while my phone was dinging with notifications of posts from online creators changing the world and our consciousness one radical creative piece of content at a time!

Resources:

To learn more about Fundora and jumpstart your own lending process, please reach out to Marko on LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marko-ruble-4885b9116/

To learn more about The Big Shift, please watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBSQfQxEik

To learn more about the Wyoming Stable Token, FRNT, please visit: https://stabletoken.wyo.gov/