World Foundation raises $52.5 million in WLD token sale with one-year lockup

World Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the World protocol, has raised $52.5 million in new funding through a strategic sale of its WLD token, with all purchased tokens subject to a one-year lockup.

The "first close" of the token sale was led by Pantera Capital and included Bain Capital Crypto, WLD treasury company Eightco Holdings (Nasdaq: ORBS), Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto and other investors, World Foundation said Friday. It is not clear whether the foundation plans additional token sales beyond the first close. A spokesperson declined to comment to The Block when asked.

Notably, the foundation said the WLD tokens sold in the transaction "are intended for use within World Network and do not represent investment interest or rights to profits or returns." The spokesperson said this means the WLD purchased by investors does not represent an equity interest in Tools for Humanity, the for-profit company behind the World project.

The new funding will be used to expand World ID technology for organizations, consumers and AI agents globally, the foundation said.

Scaling World ID

The token sale comes as World marks three years since launching into production and shifts its focus from building the network to expanding the use of World ID.

World enables people to verify they are unique humans through a one-time Orb verification that creates a World ID without revealing their identity. The foundation said the World ID is stored on a user's phone and relies on advanced cryptography and anonymized multi-party computation, developed and open-sourced by the foundation, to preserve user privacy.

"The need for Proof of Human is becoming acutely clear with the acceleration of AI development, and we see this in the influx of enterprise traction," Pantera Capital general partner Cosmo Jiang said in a statement. "We’re excited to continue supporting World’s mission at this inflection point in its growth."

World said the rapid rise of AI agents is increasing demand for technology that can distinguish humans from machines online. Without proof-of-human infrastructure, it said sectors including digital advertising, online dating, voting systems, creative marketplaces and video communications could face growing challenges from AI-generated content, synthetic identities and deepfakes. The foundation also pointed to the release of World ID 4.0, which it said is designed for enterprise-scale integrations and enables developers to build additional credentials within the World ID stack using zero-knowledge proofs.

World ID is already being integrated with platforms including Zoom, DocuSign, Okta, Vercel and Tinder, according to the foundation. It also said more than 39 million people have joined World Network, including more than 18 million who have completed Orb verification. Since launch, users have generated more than 475 million World ID proofs, referring to instances where people use their World ID to verify they are human when accessing applications or services integrated with the network.

Growth and regulatory scrutiny

World was originally conceived by Sam Altman, Max Novendstern and Alex Blania with the goal of enabling people to prove they are unique humans while preserving their privacy in the age of AI. World Foundation now oversees the protocol's governance, ecosystem grants and network operations, and said it aims to make the protocol economically self-sustaining over time through fees paid by applications using the network rather than by individual users.

Tools for Humanity is the for-profit company behind the project's hardware and software development. It has raised roughly $240 million in venture equity to date, and World Foundation, which, along with its related entities, has previously raised $200 million through sales of WLD tokens. Including the latest token sale, the project has now raised about $492.5 million in total funding.

Since its launch, the World project has faced privacy and regulatory scrutiny over its biometric identity verification model. Authorities in jurisdictions including Spain, Kenya, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines have investigated, restricted, suspended or fined aspects of the project's biometric data collection over privacy, consent and data protection concerns, while World has said it continues to engage with regulators as it expands globally.

The WLD token is currently trading at around $0.37, giving it a market capitalization of about $1.31 billion. The token is down roughly 2% over the past 24 hours, according to The Block's WLD price page.

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