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DeFi business development: 44 contacts at 35 protocols, 3 steps

By NAUT Research · · 8 min read

44 DeFi BD contacts BD, partnerships and growth contacts at 35 DeFi protocols on NAUT, 30 with an X handle. Logos: Lido, Morpho, Ethena, Maple, veda_labs, Compound, Kamino, Curve Finance, Pendle, Solv Protocol.

DeFi business development starts with 1 named person at each protocol you want to work with, and NAUT tracks 44 contacts titled business development, partnerships or head of growth at 35 DeFi protocols, read on 12 November 2026. To reach them, rank the 35 protocols by total value locked (TVL), open each protocol's NAUT page to find the contact, and open on X, where 30 of the 44 have a handle on NAUT's record.

How this list was built: on 12 November 2026, NAUT read every live contact whose current title matches business development, BD, partnerships, head of growth or growth lead at a company tagged DeFi, with any title containing "former" left out. That returned 132 contact records at 113 DeFi-tagged companies. A tag is a lead, so each company's own stored description was read, and 35 of the 113 describe a DeFi protocol: lending, credit, a DEX or perps venue, derivatives, liquid staking or restaking, yield, or a stablecoin. The other 78 companies, holding 88 of the 132 records, came out for these reasons:

  • 18 describe a chain, a layer 2 or a rollup (21 records).
  • 12 describe infrastructure: bridges, oracles, interoperability, MEV, indexing, data storage, wallets, custody or clearing (17 records). The 2 with the most stored TVL are LayerZero and ChainLink.
  • 11 describe something else: AI, compute, gaming, cryptography, identity, mining, an app store or e-commerce tooling (12 records).
  • 9 describe a launchpad, an auction or a token sale and distribution platform (10 records).
  • 8 describe a trading or investment app, a prediction market, a treasury or asset management platform, or a venture firm (8 records).
  • 4 are service firms that work for protocols: risk management at Gauntlet, 1 market-making DAO and 2 staking providers (4 records).
  • 6 have no stored description at all (6 records).
  • 6 have no public NAUT page (6 records).
  • 4 have a stored line too general to say which product they run (4 records).

Every count below is NAUT's record on 12 November 2026, and a protocol can have BD staff NAUT has not logged yet. TVL is NAUT's stored database value for each protocol on that day, not text shown on the page, and it moves daily. Some protocol pages show no TVL, and the page descriptions for Solv Protocol and Mellow Protocol quote older, higher figures (over $1.3B and over $600M). 2 of the 44 records, both Head of Growth at Bedrock, look like 1 person held on 2 NAUT rows, so the list holds 43 or 44 people.

DeFi business development in 3 steps

The plan works from 3 fields NAUT holds for each contact: the protocol's TVL, the person's title, and the channels on file.

  • Rank the protocols first, so the biggest accounts get your first week.
  • Pick the person by title: 24 of the 44 hold a growth title, 13 a business development title and 7 a partnerships title.
  • Open where the person already talks in public: 30 of the 44 have an X handle on NAUT's record.
How a BD team can work the 35 DeFi protocols
  1. Rank by TVL28 of the 35 have stored TVL, 9 hold $1B or more, led by Lido and Morpho.
  2. Find the contact33 of the 44 contacts have a NAUT person page, among them Martin de Rijke at Maple.
  3. Open on X30 of the 44 have an X handle on file, and 20 have both X and Telegram.

Step 1: pick protocols by TVL

Sort the 35 protocols by the TVL on their NAUT row and work from the top. 28 of the 35 carry a stored TVL figure, 15 hold $100M or more, and 9 hold $1B or more: Lido, Morpho, Ethena, Maple, veda_labs, Compound, Kamino, Curve Finance and Pendle. The other 7 have no TVL figure on NAUT, so place them by their product and your fit with it. TVL gives you an order to work in. Check a live tracker on the day you write, because the stored figure is the 12 November 2026 reading.

Step 2: find the contact on the protocol's NAUT page

Open the protocol's page on NAUT and read its team, then pick the person whose title matches your ask. 33 of the 44 contacts have their own NAUT person page. The other 11 have no person page yet, both Lido contacts among them, so for those start from the protocol's own X account. Titles split 3 ways: 24 growth (head of growth or a regional growth lead), 13 business development and 7 partnerships. For DeFi partnerships such as an integration or a co-marketing push, the 7 partnerships titles are the closest match, Doo Wan Nam at Compound among them. A regional title tells you who owns your market: Shan Shan Shui is APAC Growth Lead at Morpho and Jane Liu is Asia Institutional Growth Lead at Ethena.

Step 3: open on X, then move to Telegram

Write first where the person is public. 30 of the 44 contacts have an X handle on NAUT's record and 24 have Telegram on file. 20 have both, 4 have Telegram only, and 10 have neither, so for those 10 the protocol's own channels are the way in. Name the protocol and the 1 thing you want to build or sell with it in your opening line, then ask to move the thread to Telegram once they reply.

Which DeFi protocols have a BD contact on NAUT, ranked by TVL?

The 10 protocols with the most stored TVL among the 35, ranked by that TVL on 12 November 2026. Stored TVL is NAUT's database value. Contacts, X and Telegram count the records NAUT holds for each.

Protocol Stored TVL Contacts X Telegram
$19,961M 2 2 2
$10,854M 1 1 1
$4,910M 1 1 0
$2,318M 1 1 1
$1,650M 1 1 1
$1,182M 1 1 1
$1,157M 1 1 1
$1,055M 1 1 1
$1,006M 2 2 2
$455M 1 0 0

These 10 hold 12 of the 44 contacts. 11 of the 12 have an X handle on file and 10 have Telegram.

How much TVL does each DeFi protocol on the list hold?

Stored TVL, the 15 protocols on the list at $100M or more
  1. Lido$19961M
  2. Morpho$10854M
  3. Ethena$4910M
  4. Maple$2318M
  5. veda_labs$1650M
  6. Compound$1182M
  7. Kamino$1157M
  8. Curve Finance$1055M
  9. Pendle$1006M
  10. Solv Protocol$455M
  11. Lorenzo Protocol$443M
  12. Bedrock$274M
  13. Mellow Protocol$241M
  14. GMX$195M
  15. Suilend$131M

Lido alone holds more stored TVL than the next 2 combined; Solv Protocol, Lorenzo Protocol, Bedrock, Mellow Protocol, GMX and Suilend fill the band from $100M to $1B, and below $100M sit 13 more protocols with a TVL figure and 7 with none.

Who are the DeFi business development contacts with a NAUT page?

9 of the 33 contacts with a person page, picked from the protocols above and the BD titles further down the list. Titles are the current ones on NAUT's record.

Anyone listed can ask NAUT to remove their page at https://naut.so/legal/data-deletion.

Related reading on NAUT: How to find decision makers in a company: 5 steps for crypto and Telegram outreach: 5 cold openers, 6,610 handles on file.

Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?

Yes: search people by title with GET https://api.naut.so/v1/people?q=head%20of%20growth, then pull 1 protocol and its team with GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/morpho, sending Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY on each. Each data or search call costs 5 credits, revealing a person's private channels costs 10 credits the first time, and the Essential plan at $49 a month carries 3,000 credits (API docs, pricing). Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to reach the 24 contacts with Telegram on file.

DeFi business development FAQ

How do I reach business development people at DeFi protocols?

Rank the protocols by TVL, find the person on the protocol's NAUT page, and open on X: NAUT tracks 44 BD, partnerships and growth contacts at 35 DeFi protocols as of 12 November 2026, and 30 of them have an X handle on file.

Which DeFi protocols have the most TVL and a BD contact on NAUT?

On 12 November 2026, 9 of the 35 DeFi protocols with a BD, partnerships or growth contact on NAUT held $1B or more in stored TVL, led by Lido at $19,961M and Morpho at $10,854M.

What titles do DeFi business development contacts hold?

Of the 44 contacts NAUT tracks at 35 DeFi protocols as of 12 November 2026, 24 hold a growth title, 13 a business development title and 7 a partnerships title.

Where can I find DeFi business development contacts and their channels?

NAUT lists 44 BD, partnerships and growth contacts at 35 DeFi protocols as of 12 November 2026, 33 of them with a person page, 30 with an X handle and 24 with Telegram on file, and a title search starts the same pull through the API with GET https://api.naut.so/v1/people?q=head%20of%20growth. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn unlock on any paid NAUT plan: start a 7-day trial.

Sources

  • NAUT database, contacts, titles, channels and stored TVL, read 12 November 2026.
  • Each protocol's own stored description on NAUT, read 12 November 2026, for the DeFi protocol filter.

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