World Foundation secures $52.5M funding round

World Foundation has raised $52.5 million in a private token sale to expand World ID, a “proof of human” system co-founded by Sam Altman. The round was led by Pantera Capital with Bain Capital Crypto and Eightco Holdings among participants, and all WLD tokens are locked for one year to align long-term incentives. Funds will be used to deploy World ID across enterprises, consumers, and AI agents, expanding the biometric-cryptographic verification approach. World ID uses iris-scanning via a device called the Orb to verify unique humans without revealing identity. The project has faced regulatory scrutiny in several countries over biometric data handling, including pushbacks and bans in multiple jurisdictions. Despite scrutiny, institutional investors have continued to back the project, signaling confidence in decentralized identity solutions and AI-era verification needs.