Business Development Lead, AI

About the role

The Monad Foundation is a team of dedicated ecosystem and community builders who are on a mission to massively grow the impact of decentralized tech. We believe that the Monad blockchain--the performant and parallel EVM Layer 1--will help decentralized apps eat the world.

The Role

AI is coming onchain. Compute is becoming a tradeable asset. Agents are starting to pay each other. Monad wants to be where it settles.

Monad Foundation, a core contributor to the Monad protocol, is looking for a Business Development Lead for AI & Compute to own the ecosystem at the intersection of AI infrastructure, agentic applications, and onchain markets. You'll build relationships with AI founders, venture firms, and compute providers and turn those relationships into early-stage teams building and launching on Monad.

Your focus is where AI meets onchain markets: tradable compute, agentic payments, and the capital markets forming around them. We’re looking for a Business Development Leadwho can identify where Monad adds value, close commercial deals, and make Monad a preferred settlement layer for live AI and compute products, backed by the Foundation’s resources and network.

What You Will Do

• Own sourcing and activation. Build Monad’s presence in San Francisco through founders and the wider AI community. Develop the existing pipeline and source new teams, owning qualification, follow-up, deployment, and launch.
• Build venture and capital relationships. Develop durable relationships with venture firms and crypto-native capital, turning introductions into qualified opportunities and teams building on Monad.
• Drive the compute-markets strategy. Recruit protocols, index providers, curators, liquidity providers, compute operators, and trading partners. Develop collaborations around compute index vaults, lending against tokenized compute, and hedging products that bring liquidity and volume to Monad.
• Drive agentic payments. Find and activate teams building agent-driven and stablecoin payments, including x402 and emerging payment models. Convert integrations into real transaction activity.
• Structure and close collaborations. Understand each business and make the case for Monad. Negotiate commercial arrangements across company stages, connecting traditional financial structuring with onchain execution and settlement.
• Turn strategy into measurable outcomes. Coordinate technical, ecosystem, DeFi, communications, and legal support. Set priorities and milestones, remove launch blockers, and track live products, users, payments, liquidity, and sustained volume.

Who You Are

• A record of closing and launching. You’ve taken BD or strategic partnerships from an initial conversation to a working product, including with growth or late-stage businesses.
• Strong AI and compute relationships. You understand AI business models and can bring together founders, venture investors, GPU providers, neoclouds, trading firms, and market makers.
• Founder empathy and follow-through. You can explain why Monad matters to a partner, earn trust, bring in technical expertise, and sustain momentum through a complex integration.
• Autonomy and judgment. You build your own pipeline, prioritize real use cases, set clear success and failure criteria, and stop investing in weak opportunities. You collaborate with low ego and stay effective without a playbook.
• Based in San Francisco. You want to build relationships in person and spend time with the AI, compute, and crypto communities across the Bay Area.