Balancer Labs
The company closed; the exchange it built kept running without it
The for-profit company that built and funded Balancer, a decentralised exchange on Ethereum whose pools keep assets at set percentage weights.
- Capital raised (announced)
- Estimated
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | 2020 | ||
| Series A (BAL token purchases from the company treasury) | 2021 |
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fernando Martinelli | — | Not established | Oct 2026 |
Timeline
2018
24 March 2020
The protocol was in closed beta, audited by Trail of Bits and deployed to Ethereum mainnet, with a public launch due by the end of March.
10 February 2021
The company said it planned to launch Balancer v2.
12 May 2021
CryptoSlate reported an upgraded pool interface and a shared vault for token balances, designed to reduce transaction fees. The article establishes delivery by this date, rather than using a later anniversary as a launch record.
3 November 2025
Reports put the amount drained at about $110 million and about $128 million.
23 March 2026
How it ended
Hack or exploit
Co-founder Fernando Martinelli announced on the protocol's governance forum that the company would shut down, writing that it had "become a liability rather than an asset to the protocol's future" and was not sustainable without revenue. He said the November 2025 exploit had created ongoing legal exposure. Essential staff were to move to a new operating entity, pending a governance vote, while the protocol and its DAO carried on with emissions cut to zero and fees redirected to the treasury.
What happened next
- Aftermath15 September 2026
A treasury council member posted a proposal to stop product work, move pools to withdrawals only and distribute remaining DAO assets, valued at least $9 million, to BAL holders. A vote was scheduled for 25 to 29 September 2026.
Still alive
Open spot
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Sources
12 sources behind this page.
- 1Balancer Labs will shut down as corporate entity became 'a liability' after $110 million exploit · CoinDesk · Mar 2026
- 2Following V2 plans, Balancer raises $5 million from Three Arrows & DeFiance · Cointelegraph · Feb 2021
- 3DeFi Protocol Balancer Proposes Orderly Shutdown, Plans to Return $9M Treasury to BAL Token Holders · Crowdfund Insider · Sep 2026
- 4Balancer Raises $5 Million in Latest Funding Round · Crypto Briefing
- 5Balancer releases version two · CryptoSlate · May 2021
- 6Balancer shutters for-profit entity after $128m hack as CEO says 'next 12 months will be crucial' for the DeFi exchange · DL News · Mar 2026
- 7balancer-core: contributors · GitHub
- 8GitHub profile: FernandoMartinelli · GitHub (self-published profile) · Feb 2025
- 9Non-custodial portfolio manager Balancer Labs raises $3M from Accomplice, Placeholder, CoinFund and Inflection · The Block (syndicated on Yahoo Finance) · Mar 2020
- 10Posts by @fcmartinelli, 1 March to 5 April 2026 (wind-down window) · X (via twitterapi.io)
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- 11Posts by @fcmartinelli, 27 March to 4 April 2020 (Balancer launch window) · X (via twitterapi.io)
- 12X account record for @fcmartinelli · X (via twitterapi.io)
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.