NAUT tracks 63 companies under its DeFAI sector tag, and 13 of those DeFAI projects describe an AI agent that performs a DeFi action for the user: trading, yield farming, lending, staking or portfolio management. Read on 2 November 2026, 7 of those 13 DeFAI projects have a live token on NAUT's record and 6 do not, and every one of the 13 has a live NAUT page linked below.
How this list was built: on 2 November 2026 NAUT read all 63 rows that carry its DeFAI sector tag and kept a row only when the row's own description names an AI agent doing a DeFi job, which is what the term DeFAI means in practice. 41 rows were left out because their own description puts them somewhere else: a Layer-1 chain, a GPU network, a market intelligence agent, an analytics dashboard or a plain AI token. 6 more were left out because their description field is empty, so there is nothing to confirm, and 3 were left out because they have no live NAUT page to link, 1 of which does describe prompt-to-trade automation. Round counts, amounts, backers, team rows and token flags below are all NAUT's own record read on 2 November 2026, and dollar figures are the amounts NAUT holds against each round.
What is DeFAI, and which DeFAI projects does NAUT track?
DeFAI is the part of crypto where AI agents in DeFi carry out the transaction rather than only advising on one, so a user types a goal and the agent swaps, bridges, stakes, farms or rebalances. The 13 projects below are the DeFAI projects on NAUT whose own description claims exactly that, ranked by the largest single round NAUT holds against them, which is charted further down.
| Project | Agent's job | Token | Rounds |
|---|---|---|---|
 Almanak |
Finds and replicates DeFi yield farming strategies | Yes | 6 |
 GT-Protocol |
Chat AI that executes across CeFi, DeFi and NFT markets | Yes | 8 |
 Velvet |
DeFi trading and portfolio OS run on intents and AI | Yes | 3 |
 HeyElsa |
Turns a typed goal into swaps, bridging and staking | Yes | 1 |
 Ondo DeFAI |
A DeFAI Layer-2 for onchain AI agents | No | 3 |
 HenjinAI |
AI trading and AI liquidity strategies on Base | No | 7 |
 DeFAI |
Portfolio analysis and AI-driven DeFi investments | Yes | 1 |
 aiPump |
Deploys AI traders on Hyperliquid, Solana and Base | Yes | 3 |
 DeFi Agents AI |
Reads markets and trades on the user's behalf | Yes | 4 |
 Kvants |
Quant strategies for everyday investors | No | 0 |
 PlutonAI |
Describes itself as a DeFAI platform | No | 0 |
 senpi_ai |
An onchain GPT for autonomous trading | No | 0 |
 YOMIRGO |
AI agent assets and a trading platform | No | 0 |
Which DeFAI projects have a live token?
The 7 live DeFAI tokens on NAUT's record belong to: Almanak, GT-Protocol, Velvet, HeyElsa, DeFAI, aiPump and DeFi Agents AI. 2 of the 7 also carry a market page link on their NAUT row, HeyElsa and Velvet, so the other 5 are flagged as launched without a linked market page on NAUT.
The 6 with no launched token on NAUT's record are Ondo DeFAI, HenjinAI, Kvants, PlutonAI, senpi_ai and YOMIRGO. HenjinAI is the one of those 6 with the most rounds on record, 7, and Ondo DeFAI has 3.
How much have DeFAI projects raised, on NAUT's record?
NAUT holds 36 rounds against 9 of the 13 projects, 33 of which carry an amount, totalling $26.05M. 30 of the 36 carry a date, running from 8 February 2022 to 28 August 2025. The other 4 projects have no round on NAUT's record, which means no round has been added to their row rather than that they never raised.
The 4 largest rounds are Almanak's $8.45M on 15 August 2025, a $3.75M private round at GT-Protocol with no date on record, Velvet's $3.7M on 9 July 2025 and HeyElsa's $3M on 5 June 2025. A 5th round sits above $1M, Almanak's $2.49M ICO on 21 August 2025, and the remaining 28 rounds with an amount run from $20,000 to $500,000.
Who backs these DeFAI projects?
NAUT's record names 17 investor firms across the rounds of 3 of the 13 projects, and no firm appears against 2 of the 3. The other 10 projects have no backer on NAUT's record, which is NAUT's record and not a statement that nobody backed them.
| Project | Firms on NAUT's round record | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Velvet |
 Gate.io Labs,  DWF Labs,  LucidBlue Ventures,  Blockchain Founders Fund,  Gains Associates,  Binance Labs,  SkyVision Capital,  Rarestone Capital,  Poolz Ventures,  PAKA |
10 |
| Almanak |
 Shima Capital,  RockawayX,  Delphi Digital, Delphi Ventures,  HashKey Group,  NEAR Foundation |
6 |
| HeyElsa |
 MH Ventures |
1 |
Delphi Digital and NEAR Foundation each sit against 2 separate Almanak rounds, so they are the 2 firms NAUT holds twice inside 1 project.
What this tells a BD team
- The 7 with a live token are the ones with a treasury, a market and a reason to buy infrastructure, so they come first on a sell list.
- Only 6 of the 13 have any team row on NAUT, so for the other 7 the route in is the company page and its X account rather than a named person.
- Velvet is the deepest single account here: 12 of the 29 team rows on NAUT sit against it, including a Partner and a growth lead.
- The 4 projects with no round on record are the hardest to size, so qualify them on product and token status before spending a slot on them.
- Start with the 7 tokensAlmanak, GT-Protocol, Velvet, HeyElsa, DeFAI, aiPump and DeFi Agents AI all carry a launched token.
- Open the 6 with people29 team rows sit across Velvet, HeyElsa, senpi_ai, Almanak, PlutonAI and GT-Protocol.
- Pick the channel on fileOf the 29 rows, 20 carry Telegram, 15 an X handle, 12 LinkedIn and 4 an email.
- Read the cap table first17 investor pages sit against Velvet, Almanak and HeyElsa rounds, and a shared backer is a warm intro.
What this tells a founder raising or an investor sourcing
- The money in this niche is concentrated: 5 rounds carry more than $1M and they account for $21.39M of the $26.05M on record.
- Everything else is small by count as well as size: 28 of the 33 rounds with an amount run from $20,000 to $500,000, most of them launchpad sales.
- Yield automation and portfolio execution are where the larger cheques sit, at Almanak, Velvet and HeyElsa.
- For an investor sourcing, the 4 projects with no round on NAUT's record and 7 team rows between them are the earliest-looking rows in the set: Kvants, PlutonAI, senpi_ai and YOMIRGO.
How to reach the people behind these DeFAI projects
NAUT holds 29 team rows across 6 of the 13 projects, and 27 of those rows have a live NAUT person page; 2 rows at HeyElsa have no page yet. Across the 29, 20 carry a Telegram presence, 15 an X handle, 12 a LinkedIn URL and 4 an email, and 27 carry at least 1 of the 4.
| Person | Title | Project | Channels |
|---|---|---|---|
 Neo |
Co-Founder & CEO | Almanak |
|
 Panluq |
Co-Founder | Almanak |
X, Telegram |
 Lars |
CTO | Almanak |
X, email |
 Peter Ionov |
CEO and Co-Founder | GT-Protocol |
X |
| Vlad Balaban | Co-Founder / CBDO | GT-Protocol |
None yet |
 Dhawal Shah |
Co-Founder & CEO | HeyElsa |
X, Telegram, LinkedIn, email |
| Orion Kade | CEO | PlutonAI |
Telegram, LinkedIn |
 Betashop |
Co-Founder & CEO | senpi_ai |
X, LinkedIn |
 Sarvesh Jain |
CTO | senpi_ai |
X, Telegram, LinkedIn |
| Vasily Nikonov | Founder & CEO | Velvet |
Dhawal Shah is the 1 row in this table with all 4 channels on file. Anyone listed can ask NAUT to remove their page at https://naut.so/legal/data-deletion.
Each project page also carries its X handle, which is the fastest public route to the 7 projects with no team row on NAUT: aiPump at @aipump__, DeFAI at @defai_dao, DeFi Agents AI at @aidefiagents, HenjinAI at @henjin_ai, Kvants at @kvantsai, Ondo DeFAI at @ondoai_official and YOMIRGO at @yomirgo, each as stored on that row at NAUT.
Related reading on NAUT: DePIN projects: 98 on NAUT, $1.72B raised by 64 and AI crypto investors: 44 backers, 18 rounds, $317.6M since July.
Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?
Yes. The 63 DeFAI-tagged rows behind this page come back from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects?sector=DeFAI&limit=100 on the NAUT API, and the 7 with a launched token from the same call with token=launched, each sent with the header Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY. A single project with its team, which is how the 29 team rows were counted, comes from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/velvet, and each data call costs 5 credits; keys are minted at naut.so/developer, the parameters are documented at naut.so/docs/api and plans start at $49 a month for 3,000 credits at naut.so/pricing. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for these people unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial if you need the channels and not only the counts.
DeFAI projects FAQ
What is DeFAI?
DeFAI is crypto shorthand for an AI agent that executes a DeFi action rather than only describing one, so the user states a goal and the agent trades, bridges, stakes, farms or rebalances onchain. Of the 63 rows NAUT tags DeFAI, 13 describe that on their own NAUT page as of 2 November 2026, and the other 50 are left out of this list because their description puts them in another category, is empty, or their row has no live page.
Which projects are building DeFAI, and which have a live token?
7 of the 13 DeFAI projects on NAUT carry a launched token on their NAUT row as of 2 November 2026: Almanak, GT-Protocol, Velvet, HeyElsa, DeFAI, aiPump and DeFi Agents AI. The 6 without one are Ondo DeFAI, HenjinAI, Kvants, PlutonAI, senpi_ai and YOMIRGO.
How much have DeFAI projects raised, on NAUT's record?
NAUT holds 36 rounds against 9 of these 13 DeFAI projects, 33 of them with an amount, totalling $26.05M, with dated rounds running from 8 February 2022 to 28 August 2025. The largest is Almanak's $8.45M on 15 August 2025, and 5 rounds in total sit above $1M.
Which investors back DeFAI projects?
NAUT's round record names 17 firms across 3 of the 13 projects as of 2 November 2026: 10 against Velvet, including Binance Labs, DWF Labs and Gate.io Labs; 6 against Almanak, including NEAR Foundation, Delphi Digital and Shima Capital; and MH Ventures against HeyElsa. The other 10 projects hold no backer on NAUT's record, which means none has been added to those rows.
Where can I find the people behind these DeFAI projects and their contact channels?
On NAUT: 27 of the 29 team rows across these 13 DeFAI projects have a live naut.so person page, and each page shows which channels NAUT holds for that row, 20 with Telegram, 15 with an X handle, 12 with LinkedIn and 4 with an email. The same records come back from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/<slug> for a company team and GET https://api.naut.so/v1/people/{id}?include=private for a person's private channels, at 5 credits a data call and 10 the first time a person's private channels are revealed. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to open them.
Sources
- NAUT's own database, read on 2 November 2026: the 63 companies carrying the DeFAI sector tag, each row's description, token flag, X handle, rounds, round backers and team rows. Every count above is recomputed from those rows, each company counted once.
- Each round row on NAUT carries its own source link, to CryptoRank, CoinLaunch, Cointelegraph or the project's own X post. Those pages were not re-fetched for this article, so the amounts above are quoted as the figures NAUT holds.
- NAUT API parameters, credits and plan prices: naut.so/docs/api and naut.so/pricing, read on 31 October 2026.
- 9 of the 63 DeFAI-tagged rows could not be assessed and are named only as counts: 6 have an empty description field and 3 have no live NAUT page to link.