How to find someone on Telegram, in short: search the exact @username when you have one and check the account's name and bio against a second source before you write, and when you have no username go through the company's own public Telegram group, through the channel the person does publish, or through a directory that stores the handle with a note on where it came from. NAUT holds a Telegram handle for 6,762 of its 14,283 published people, and 1,482 of its 10,473 published companies run a public Telegram group of their own, so one of those 2 doors is open at most crypto targets a deal maker works on.
Data note. Every count here was read from NAUT's own database on 27 October 2026, read-only. A person is counted when their row is live and published, which is 14,283 people, and a company when its row is live and published, which is 10,473. A handle is counted as carrying a source trail when the row stores both the handle and a note saying where it was found, which is true of 398 of the 6,762. The named examples were each checked against the company's own channel and the person's own X profile, read on 25 October 2026. Where a check failed, the name is out of this article rather than written up: 7 of the 13 people and companies first pulled for it did not survive the source pass, and the 2 people below are the ones whose titles and missing handles both held up. NAUT Research wrote it.
How to find someone on Telegram: the 4 ways, in the order to try them
The order matters more than the method. Each way costs more time than the one above it and is more likely to reach a real account, so start at the top and stop as soon as you have a handle you can source.
- A stored handle is a lead until a second source agrees with it. NAUT stores 6,762 Telegram handles and 398 of them carry a note on where the handle came from, so for the other 6,364 the second source is work you still have to do.
- A company's own public group is the most reliable door, because the company publishes it about itself. 1,482 crypto companies run one, which is more than 3x the 398 personally sourced handles.
- A missing handle is not a dead end. 8,732 of those 14,283 people carry an X handle and 8,968 carry a LinkedIn URL, so the person is reachable somewhere even when Telegram is blank.
- 1,252 people on NAUT carry no public channel at all. For them the route runs through their company, not through them.
- Search the exact handleNAUT stores 6,762 Telegram handles, and 398 of those carry a note on where the handle came from.
- Enter the company group1,482 of NAUT's 10,473 published companies run a public Telegram group, such as DAO Maker at t.me/daomaker.
- Ask on the channel they use8,732 of the 14,283 people carry an X handle and 8,968 carry a LinkedIn URL.
- Read the sourced rowThe 398 sourced handles say where each one was found, which is the check the other 6,364 still need.
Way 1: the exact @username, checked against a second source
A Telegram username search matches the string exactly, so a handle that is 1 character off reaches a different account. That is the whole risk in this way, and it is the reason the handle alone is not the answer. Open the account, read the display name and the bio, and compare both against the person's own X profile or their company's team page before you send anything.
3 signals tell you the account is the person. The display name matches the name on their own profile. The bio names the company or the domain you already have. And the account's own posts or linked site point back at that company. An account with a first name and an empty bio passes none of those, and in our source pass on this article that pattern was the most common reason a stored handle could not be tied to its person.
A handle that fails the check is worth recording as failed rather than deleted, because the next person to look will otherwise repeat the search. NAUT stores the source note next to the handle for this reason, which is what separates its 398 sourced rows from the 6,364 that carry a bare string.
Way 2: the company's own public Telegram group
This is the way to use first when the person's handle is unknown, because a company publishes its own group and keeps it current. 1,482 of NAUT's 10,473 published companies run a public Telegram group, and 1,925 publish a community link of some kind. Crypto Telegram groups are published by the company itself, which is what makes them the steadiest door.
3 worked examples, each read on 25 October 2026 and each confirmed as the company's own channel by the company itself:
| Company | Its own public group |
|---|---|
 Poolz Ventures |
t.me/PoolzOfficialCommunity |
 Arrakis |
t.me/arrakisfinance |
 DAO Maker |
t.me/daomaker |
Each channel says what it is on its own page. The Poolz group carries the official Poolz name and a verification mark, the Arrakis group names itself the official announcement group of the protocol, and the DAO Maker group names itself the chat dedicated to discussions around the company.
Inside a group, the member list and the recent messages name the people who answer for the company, and an admin tag marks the ones who speak for it. That is 1 place where a BD lead can read a name and a handle in the same view, and the handle comes with the group it was found in, which is the source note you would otherwise have to go and find.
Mind the 2 failure modes. An announcement group has comments off, so it names the company and nobody inside it, and a big open chat attracts accounts impersonating the team. Treat an admin tag inside the company's own published group as a source, and treat a direct message that arrives first as nothing.
Way 3: ask on the channel the person does publish
When Telegram is blank for a person, the handle usually exists and is simply not public. 1,470 of NAUT's people carry a Telegram handle and no X handle at all, and the mirror of that is the group this way is for: people who publish an X or LinkedIn profile and no Telegram.
Bertrand Levy is the worked case. He is Senior Vice President, Global Brand Partnerships at The Sandbox, confirmed on his own X profile on 25 October 2026, and that profile publishes no Telegram handle. NAUT stores none for him either. A partnerships title at a company this size is exactly the row a BD team wants, and the Telegram field is empty, so the first message has to go where he does post.
Jonas Hayajneh is the same shape at a different company. He is Head of Business Development at DAO Maker, and no public personal Telegram handle came out of the source pass on 25 October 2026. His company runs t.me/daomaker, so way 2 reaches his team even though way 1 and way 3 both come up empty on him personally.
So the ask is short and it names the reason. One line on X or LinkedIn that says what the deal is and asks whether Telegram is easier gets you the handle from the person it belongs to, which is the strongest source trail there is.
Way 4: read a row that stores the handle with its source
The last way is the one that saves the other 3 next time. A handle is useful for years and the check on it is the expensive part, so the row should keep both.
On NAUT, 398 people carry a Telegram handle together with a note on where it was found, and the notes name the kind of source: an official Telegram community, another Telegram community, a company website, an X post, or an introduction. Each of those is a different strength of evidence, and reading which one applies is faster than redoing the search. The other 6,364 stored handles carry no such note, so they start as way 1.
How to find someone on Telegram without their username?
Go through their company, in this order: its own public Telegram group, then its team page, then the channel the person publishes. 1,482 crypto companies on NAUT run a public group and 1,925 publish a community link, so the company door is open far more often than a personally sourced handle is available, which is true of 398 people.
The numbers say why the company route has to carry the load. Of 14,283 published people, 6,762 carry a Telegram handle of any kind, 8,732 carry an X handle, 8,968 carry a LinkedIn URL, and 1,252 carry nothing public at all. For those 1,252 there is no personal door to try, and the company group is the only route that does not depend on them having published something.
The first 3 bars overlap heavily, which is the point of the last 3: 5,292 people carry Telegram and X together, 1,470 carry Telegram with no X, and 1,252 carry neither along with no LinkedIn URL.
Which roles carry a Telegram handle, and which carry a source?
Founders do, and the BD seat is the thinnest row in the table. That is awkward for everyone sourcing a deal, because the BD seat is the one that answers a first message fastest.
| Title group | Rows | Telegram | Sourced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founder or CEO | 5,249 | 2,440 | 199 |
| BD seat | 372 | 197 | 8 |
| Other titles | 9,338 | 4,661 | 263 |
Read the Telegram column, the rows carrying a handle, against the Sourced column, the rows that also carry a note on where the handle came from. Roughly half of each group carries a handle, and the source note is rare everywhere: 199 founder rows, 8 BD rows and 263 other rows. A row is a title held at a company, so a person with 2 stints appears twice and the 3 groups do not add to the 14,283 people.
The BD row is also small before any of that: 372 titled rows across the whole database name business development or partnerships. So a deal maker looking for the counterpart BD lead is working the scarcest role in the directory through the field with the fewest sources, which is the case for way 2 over way 1 on exactly that search.
How to find someone on Telegram as a crypto BD team
Split the work by what you have when you set out to find crypto contacts. A handle in hand is a 2 minute check, a blank Telegram field is a company search, and the 2 should never queue behind each other.
- Check before you write, every time. 6,364 of NAUT's 6,762 stored handles carry no source note, so the check is on you for 94 of every 100 handles you pick up.
- Work the group, not the person, on a cold target. 1,482 companies publish one.
- Expect the BD seat to be missing. 372 titled rows carry a BD or partnerships title, and 8 of them carry a sourced Telegram handle.
- Write the source down next to the handle when you find it. That turns 1 search into a row your team can reuse, which is what the 398 sourced rows on NAUT are.
- Start from the company page1,482 of NAUT's 10,473 published companies publish their own Telegram group.
- Pick the seat, not the name372 titled rows carry a BD or partnerships title, and 197 of those carry a handle.
- Verify or go around6,364 of the 6,762 stored handles carry no source note, so a second source decides.
- Ask on the open channel8,732 people carry an X handle and 8,968 a LinkedIn URL, which covers most blank Telegram rows.
What this tells a founder raising
The same gaps run the other way when you are the one being searched for. An investor sourcing deals hits your Telegram field the same way you hit theirs, and 1,252 of the people NAUT publishes carry no public channel at all.
- Publish 1 handle you actually read, and say so in your X bio. That single line is the source trail a stranger needs, and it is the strongest kind: the person's own statement.
- Put your company's Telegram group on your own site. 1,925 companies publish a community link and 1,482 publish a group specifically, so the ones that do not are harder to reach than they intend to be.
- Name who answers. An announcement channel with comments off tells an investor your company exists and nothing about who to ask.
- Expect the lookalike. Telegram matches a username exactly, so a handle 1 character from yours reaches somebody else, and publishing yours in a place people trust is the cheapest defence.
How to find someone on Telegram FAQ
How do you find someone on Telegram without their username?
Go through their company. On NAUT on 27 October 2026, 1,482 of 10,473 published companies run their own public Telegram group, among them Poolz Ventures at t.me/PoolzOfficialCommunity, Arrakis at t.me/arrakisfinance and DAO Maker at t.me/daomaker, and 1,925 publish a community link of some kind. Where the company publishes nothing, ask on the channel the person does use: 8,732 of the 14,283 published people carry an X handle and 8,968 carry a LinkedIn URL.
How do I check that a Telegram account is really the person?
Compare 3 things against a source you already trust: the display name, the bio, and the site or company the account links. An account showing a first name and an empty bio confirms nothing, and on NAUT only 398 of the 6,762 stored Telegram handles carry a note saying where the handle was found, so the other 6,364 need that check before a first message goes out.
How many crypto people have a Telegram handle on NAUT?
6,762 of 14,283 published people carried a Telegram handle on 27 October 2026, of which 398 also carried a note on where it came from. 1,470 of those people carry Telegram and no X handle, 5,292 carry both, and 1,252 of the 14,283 carry no public channel at all.
Which roles are hardest to find on Telegram?
Business development and partnerships. On 27 October 2026, 372 titled rows on NAUT carried a BD or partnerships title, 197 of those carried a Telegram handle and 8 carried a source note for it, against 5,249 founder or chief executive rows with 2,440 handles and 199 source notes.
Can I find a crypto BD lead whose Telegram is blank?
Yes, through their company and their open channels. Jonas Hayajneh is Head of Business Development at DAO Maker with no public personal Telegram handle as of 25 October 2026, and Bertrand Levy is Senior Vice President, Global Brand Partnerships at The Sandbox with no Telegram handle on his own X profile. Both companies are reachable through channels they publish themselves, and DAO Maker runs t.me/daomaker.
Sources
- NAUT's own database, read on 27 October 2026, read-only: the published people and companies, each person's Telegram, X and LinkedIn fields with the source note stored against the Telegram handle, each person's job title rows, and each company's community links. Every count above was computed from those rows at that time.
- The official Telegram channels of Poolz Ventures, Arrakis and DAO Maker, read on 25 October 2026 at t.me/PoolzOfficialCommunity, t.me/arrakisfinance and t.me/daomaker, each cross-read against the company's own site or X account.
- The X profile of Bertrand Levy, read on 25 October 2026, for his title at The Sandbox and for the absence of a Telegram handle on it, cross-read against a group company release naming him in the same role.
- The role of Jonas Hayajneh at DAO Maker, read on 25 October 2026 on CB Insights and cross-read against DAO Maker's own LinkedIn page.