Business Development SP - January 2024 Update

Service Providers
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Apologies for being late to post the first BDSP update, but this fell off my radar of monthly requirements for the SP.

The first month and a half for the BDSP has been busy and productive. As mentioned in BIP-525, it’s been a mixture of onboarding lipman, supporting existing initiatives, and driving new business for Balancer. Many thanks to the entire Balancer team - especially the maxis - as their support has made the onboarding process as efficient as possible. I believe the BDSP and broader balancer ecosystem is already off to a great working relationship - which is critical to our collective success.

As noted in BIP-525, these were the Key Objectives for Q1-2024. Updates are in bold:

  1. Transition Balancer related BD activity from json to lipman

- Json has done a great job transitioning BD activity to lipman.
- Lipman in all relevant TG groups (internal and external)
- Lipman is now the point person internally at Balancer for BD related activities.

  1. Onboarding of lipman to broader Balancer ecosystem

Develop general understanding of internal Balancer operations + processes for BD support

- Lipman and MikeB built out rough notion for timelines and requirements
- Zen Dragon has been very helpful educating lipman on how new partners get onboarded (rate provider reviews, forum and snapshot timing, pool creation, etc.).
- Maxis have been very helpful educating lipman on all BD related processes (e.g. how to allocate vlAURA as incentives for partners).
- Lipman in relevant internal TG chats
- Lipman attending weekly Baller meeting
- Lipman in Balancer slack
- Lipman has met 1:1 with contributors to Balancer, Beethoven X, Aura, and Beefy
- There are many moving parts across Balancer, Aura, Beefy, etc. so this is ongoing.

Develop understanding of Maxi priorities, their ideas for growth, and include within a prioritized list of initiatives to pursue in Q1.

-After discussing with key stakeholders, it’s clear Balancer’s near-term growth priorities relate to yield-bearing assets - especially LSTs and LRTs. The Marketing team did a great job articulating much of the thesis in this blog post.
- In addition, we also worked internally to determine how to prioritize new chain launches, grant programs, and more (see below).

Meet with existing, key Balancer partners to get introduced, offer support, uncover needs, etc.

  • Ongoing

**Develop grasp of V3 and its implications for growth to position BD ahead of Q2 launch

  • Ongoing
  1. Apply for new grant programs and monitor current grant programs

Reapply for Optimism grant

  • Completed. See application here.

  • Multiple LST / LRTs have verbally committed to launching on OP with BAL.

Pursue grants for Gnosis, Avalanche, Polygon zkEVM (partners only), Scroll (TBD), Linea (TBD), etc.

- Given Balancer will not be launching on new chains until after v3, grant programs of chains Balancer is already on are most relevant.
- Note: because Balancer received STIP from Arbitrum, it is not eligible for the new grant round on Arbitrum, which just opened its application period. However, Balancer should be eligible for the next grant opportunity from Arbitrum later this year.**
- We will continue to look into grants for chains where Balancer is currently deployed.**

  1. Create a framework to quantify layer 2 expansion opportunities and collaborate with Balancer DAO developers on the execution of each expansion

- Completed framework here

- The framework was used to assess and potentially prioritize the launch of 4 new chains not already approved for deployment by Balancer’s governance. Results of those assessments are being kept internal due to sensitivity.

- Note as of writing: after internal discussions, Balancer has decided not to pursue launching new chains until after v3 is released.

  1. Develop and maintain relationships with potential new networks (e.g. Scroll, Linea, X1) and current networks (e.g. Arbitrum, Optimism)

- Lipman is in discussions with existing relationships such as Metis, Scroll, X1, BNB, Linea, Gnosis, Arbitrum, Monad, Polygon, and Optimism.
- Lipman has initiated conversations with Mantle, SEI, and others.

  1. Perform a competitive landscape review to understand where Balancer sits in comparison to industry peers

Understand gaps via the analysis and work with the Balancer DAO to determine how to close the aforementioned gaps

  1. Frame Key Performance Indicators and success targets for 2024

Retrofit or design a dashboard to monitor success of growth for 2024

Here are more updates for the quarter so far:

  • LRT Tripool ezETH x weETH x rswETH nearly $50M TVL as of 2/19/24
  • LRT TVL at ~$108M as of 2/19/24
  • LSTs - in discussions with multiple LSTs that would be new to Balancer
  • LRTs
  • Will be launching pyUSD / sDOLA with support from Paypal, Trident, and Paxos
  • In discussions with SEI Labs and a team building on SEI about a Balancer friendly fork
  • In discussions with multiple L1s and L2s about launching Balancer v2 and v3
  • Created a notion for BD workspace
  • Set up weekly calls with Marketing
  • Lipman and json going to ETH Denver
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