Chosen from over 75 candidates worldwide, the first cohort displays the rising institutional and developer momentum behind Polkadot DeFi
[Zug, Switzerland, November 11, 2025] – Velocity Labs, in coordination with choose Polkadot ecosystem companions, has introduced the 5 groups chosen for the inaugural cohort of the DeFi Builders Program, a 12-week accelerator designed to assist high-potential initiatives launch and scale on Polkadot Hub.
The DeFi Builders Program was created to deal with some of the greatest challenges going through decentralized finance startups at present: liquidity cold-starts, safety vulnerabilities, and attaining sustainable product-market match. As an alternative of providing solely funding or grants, the program delivers a complete help package deal that features direct technical mentorship from core builders, liquidity partnerships, safety audits, and go-to-market technique help.
“Our aim from the begin was to create a program that provides builders the actual type of help they really have to succeed,” mentioned Jonathan Boyd, DeFi & Infra BD Lead at Velocity Labs and Program Supervisor for the DeFi Builders Program. “That is about extra than simply capital – it’s about giving groups the mentorship, instruments, and community to deliver the subsequent technology of monetary purposes to life on Polkadot.”
After receiving greater than 75 purposes from groups round the world, Velocity Labs has chosen 5 standout initiatives that exemplify the program’s imaginative and prescient for high-performance, interoperable DeFi innovation.
A brand new chapter for DeFi on Polkadot begins with the first cohort of the DeFi Builders Program. These 5 handpicked groups are constructing merchandise that push the boundaries of monetary accessibility, interoperability, and on-chain innovation.
Joinn
Joinn is constructing a monetary platform to empower underserved communities throughout Latin America by integrating spending and investing. Its flagship product, Joinn Pay, is a yield-generating pockets that permits customers to spend whereas incomes real-time yield from tokenized belongings akin to bonds and ETFs. With a user-friendly interface, AI-driven onboarding, and gamified instruments, Joinn goals to make wealth technology accessible and inflation-resistant for hundreds of thousands in a area the place 98% of potential savers don’t at present make investments.
SigilSafe
SigilSafe bridges conventional property planning with the digital asset financial system via its “Property Graph” know-how. The platform permits customers to securely map their crypto and conventional portfolios, granting fiduciaries selective, event-based entry with out ever exposing personal keys. By making a tamper-evident hyperlink between on-chain and off-chain belongings, SigilSafe ensures wealth preservation, authorized readability, and safe inheritance for the digital age.
WinCoins
WinCoins is a creator-first prediction market protocol that lets customers immediately launch and resolve markets round dwell occasions. Utilizing AI-driven good oracles and real-time information feeds, creators can monetize consideration by launching markets tied to social traits, sports activities, or gaming occasions, incomes 1% of all buying and selling quantity. WinCoins turns neighborhood engagement right into a dynamic, participatory financial system.
Koni Finance
Developed by the staff behind Subwallet, Koni Finance is a cross-chain buying and selling and token launch ecosystem constructed natively on Polkadot Hub. It connects the Ethereum, Arbitrum, Bitcoin, and Polkadot networks to ship a professional-grade Buying and selling Terminal and Token Launch Platform in a single seamless interface. By bridging the full lifecycle of digital belongings – from issuance to buying and selling and administration – Koni Finance goals to redefine cross-chain liquidity.
TidalX
TidalX is growing a next-generation Perpetual Buying and selling Platform (Perp DEX) centered on pace, simplicity, and accessibility. Backed by over $250,000 in safety audits, TidalX combines professional-grade efficiency with a user-friendly design to make leveraged buying and selling intuitive for all customers. Its gasless, ultra-fast execution positions TidalX as a key onboarding platform for the subsequent wave of DeFi adoption.
These 5 groups have formally begun the 12-week accelerator, throughout which they’ll work carefully with Velocity Labs, Parity Applied sciences, Web3 Basis, and different companions to refine their merchandise, strengthen safety, and put together for mainnet launch. This system will culminate in an Investor Demo Day, the place every staff will showcase their progress to the broader ecosystem and potential companions.
“The innovation and power these groups deliver characterize a significant milestone for Polkadot Hub,” added Boyd. “They’re proof that the subsequent evolution of DeFi is being constructed right here, collaboratively, securely, and at scale.”
Media Contact: [email protected]
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About Velocity Labs
Velocity Labs is a core contributor to Polkadot, devoted to remodeling it into the premier platform for DeFi growth in Web3. As strategic companions, we empower builders and infrastructure suppliers with complete help throughout enterprise growth, go-to-market technique, engineering help, and product technique. For extra info, please go to: https://www.velocitylabs.org/
About Polkadot
Polkadot is the highly effective, safe core of Web3, offering a shared basis that unites some of the world’s most transformative apps and blockchains. Polkadot presents superior modular structure that enables devs to simply design and construct their very own specialised blockchain initiatives, pooled safety that ensures the identical excessive normal for safe block manufacturing throughout all linked chains and apps linked to it, and strong governance that ensures a clear system the place everybody has a say in shaping the ecosystem for development and sustainability. With Polkadot, customers should not simply individuals, they’re co-creators with the energy to form its future.
