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Zug, Switzerland, November 12, 2025 – Velocity Labs, in coordination with select Polkadot ecosystem partners, has announced the five teams selected for the inaugural cohort of the DeFi Builders Program, a 12-week accelerator designed to help high-potential projects launch and scale on Polkadot Hub.

The DeFi Builders Program was created to address some of the biggest challenges facing decentralized finance startups today: liquidity cold-starts, security vulnerabilities, and achieving sustainable product-market fit. Instead of offering only funding or grants, the program delivers a comprehensive support package that includes direct technical mentorship from core developers, liquidity partnerships, security audits, and go-to-market strategy support.

“Our goal from the start was to create a program that gives builders the exact kind of support they actually need to succeed,” said Jonathan Boyd, DeFi & Infra BD Lead at Velocity Labs and Program Manager for the DeFi Builders Program. “This is about more than just capital - it’s about giving teams the mentorship, tools, and network to bring the next generation of financial applications to life on Polkadot.”

After receiving more than 75 applications from teams around the world, Velocity Labs has selected five standout projects that exemplify the program’s vision for high-performance, interoperable DeFi innovation.

A new chapter for DeFi on Polkadot begins with the first cohort of the DeFi Builders Program. These five handpicked teams are building products that push the boundaries of financial accessibility, interoperability, and on-chain innovation.

Joinn

Joinn is building a financial platform to empower underserved communities across Latin America by integrating spending and investing. Its flagship product, Joinn Pay, is a yield-generating wallet that enables users to spend while earning real-time yield from tokenized assets such as bonds and ETFs. With a user-friendly interface, AI-driven onboarding, and gamified tools, Joinn aims to make wealth generation accessible and inflation-resistant for millions in a region where 98% of potential savers do not currently invest.

SigilSafe

SigilSafe bridges traditional estate planning with the digital asset economy through its “Estate Graph” technology. The platform allows users to securely map their crypto and traditional portfolios, granting fiduciaries selective, event-based access without ever exposing private keys. By creating a tamper-evident link between on-chain and off-chain assets, SigilSafe ensures wealth preservation, legal clarity, and secure inheritance for the digital age.

WinCoins

WinCoins is a creator-first prediction market protocol that lets users instantly launch and resolve markets around live events. Using AI-driven smart oracles and real-time data feeds, creators can monetize attention by launching markets tied to social trends, sports, or gaming events, earning 1% of all trading volume. WinCoins turns community engagement into a dynamic, participatory economy.

Koni Finance

Developed by the team behind Subwallet, Koni Finance is a cross-chain trading and token launch ecosystem built natively on Polkadot Hub. It connects the Ethereum, Arbitrum, Bitcoin, and Polkadot networks to deliver a professional-grade Trading Terminal and Token Launch Platform in one seamless interface. By bridging the full lifecycle of digital assets - from issuance to trading and management - Koni Finance aims to redefine cross-chain liquidity.

TidalX

TidalX is developing a next-generation Perpetual Trading Platform (Perp DEX) focused on speed, simplicity, and accessibility. Backed by over $250,000 in security audits, TidalX combines professional-grade performance with a user-friendly design to make leveraged trading intuitive for all users. Its gasless, ultra-fast execution positions TidalX as a key onboarding platform for the next wave of DeFi adoption.

These five teams have officially begun the 12-week accelerator, during which they will work closely with Velocity Labs, Parity Technologies, Web3 Foundation, and other partners to refine their products, strengthen security, and prepare for mainnet launch. The program will culminate in an Investor Demo Day, where each team will showcase their progress to the broader ecosystem and potential partners.

“The innovation and energy these teams bring represent a major milestone for Polkadot Hub,” added Boyd. “They’re proof that the next evolution of DeFi is being built here, collaboratively, securely, and at scale.”

Media contact
press@velocitylabs.io

About Velocity Labs

Velocity Labs is a core contributor to Polkadot, dedicated to transforming it into the premier platform for DeFi development in Web3. As strategic partners, we empower builders and infrastructure providers with comprehensive support across business development, go-to-market strategy, engineering support, and product strategy. For more information, please visit: https://www.velocitylabs.org/

About Polkadot

Polkadot is the powerful, secure core of Web3, providing a shared foundation that unites some of the world’s most transformative apps and blockchains. Polkadot offers advanced modular architecture that allows devs to easily design and build their own specialized blockchain projects, pooled security that ensures the same high standard for secure block production across all connected chains and apps connected to it, and robust governance that ensures a transparent system where everyone has a say in shaping the ecosystem for growth and sustainability. With Polkadot, users are not just participants, they're co-creators with the power to shape its future.