Get Funding
Polkadot has a number of avenues to fund projects that advance the ecosystem. This page contains a summary of different funding opportunities, from grants to investments available in the ecosystem.
Polkadot Treasury
The Polkadot Treasury is a set of funds dedicated to the advancement of the network and is governed by the community of DOT tokenholders. The treasury is refilled from inflation and network usage.
Funds are available in DOT, USDC and USDT, as well as other tokens held in the Polkadot Treasury. Any indivdiual or group (DAO, company, non-profit, etc.) may make a proposal to spend funds from the treasury, which is then voted on by the community.
For more information on the treasury, visit the Treasury Basics page on opengov.watch
Polkadot Ecosystem Funds
Polkadot Ecosystem Venture Capitalists (VCs) are available to make investments into ecosystem projects. They are driven to meet a dual mandate of investing in promising businesses along with driving a strategic focus in Polkadot.
Scytale
Scytale Digital is a VC firm led by Mark Cachia and Christoph Kampitsch. Scytale runs an Ecosystem Fund for Polkadot.
Find out more on Scytale’s X profile.
Dot Play
Dot Play is a Polkadot ecosystem VC fund focused on gaming and entertainment. The Dot Play team consists of Angela Dalton, Nick Douzinas, Keshav Holani and Exiza Jäppinen.
Find out more on Dot Play’s X profile.
Harbour Industrial Capital
Harbour Industrial Capital (HIC) is a VC firm led by Max Rebol and Mario Altenberger.
HIC’s Fund II is a Polkadot ecosystem fund that combines VC and Liquid strategies.
Find out more on HIC’s X profile.
Polimec Launchpad
Polimec is a launchpad for the Polkadot ecosystem allowing projects to attract investment in a regulatory-compliant way.
Polimec enables fundraising in a decentralized, transparent, and regulatory compliant manner, aligning stakeholder incentives during and beyond the fundraise. - Polimec website
Recent successful fundraises include:
Find out more on Polimec’s X profile.
Polkadot Ecosystem Bounties
Various bounties in Polkadot provide funding opportunities for individuals or projects. These include events, meetups, open source projects and more.
- Apply to the Defi & Infrastructure bounty
Ecosystem Project Grants
Various parachains and solochains have grants to encourage building on their platforms.
Additionally, there are various solochain grant programs, including those from Avail, Vara, Aleph Zero, etc.
JAM Prize
The JAM Prize is a 10 million DOT (plus 100,000 KSM) prize sponsored by the Web3 Foundation to develop a number of independent clients for JAM, the next version of the protocol underlying Polkadot. The goal is to have three independent clients before the protocol is launched to production.
The competition is currently underway, and submissions will be jduged by the Polkadot Fellowship.
Visit https://jamcha.in/ for a community page dedicated to teams currently developing JAM clients.
Web3 Foundation Grants
Web3 Foundation Grants are open-source and technical in nature (e.g. deliveries of code), and are post-paid based on delivered milestones. Submitting a grant for consideration is done by creating a pull request (PR) on the W3F Grants Program Github repo.
Once submitted, a discussion will ensue with the evaluation committee on Github.
To discuss grant ideas before submitting, you can chat with the grants team on Element.
Decentralized Futures Program (Completed)
The Decentralized Futures (DF) Program was a funding initiative run by the Web3 Foundation in early to mid 2024 to kickstart new teams to build in the ecosystem.
As of Q4 2024, the program has completed and $30M has been distributed across over 50 teams.
To find out more about the teams that have been funded by DF, visit the Web3 Foundation’s blog.
Moondance x W3F Ecosystem Grants (Completed)
The grants program will focus on proposals from top-tier teams building solutions for the Polkadot ecosystem. Eligible projects can come from various industries, including: Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Developing innovative financial products on decentralized infrastructure.
- Gaming: Leveraging Polkadot’s scalability and security for blockchain-based games.
- Real-World Assets (RWAs): Tokenizing and managing real-world assets on the blockchain.
- Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN): Creating solutions for decentralized infrastructure.
- Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Building advanced NFT platforms and use cases.
- While these areas are a priority, projects from any industry with groundbreaking ideas are encouraged to apply, especially those addressing major challenges with blockchain-based solutions.
Visit the Moondance x W3F Grant page for information on how to apply.
More Funding Resources
View Seraya’s talk at Polkadot Decoded Asia 2024 for a recent (Aug 2024) overview of funding opportunities in Polkadot.