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Worldcoin, a company co-founded by OpenAI LLC CEO Sam Altman, is reportedly in "advanced talks" to secure $100 million in funding.
It was unclear from the report in the Financial Times who would be investing in the new round for the startup, which is based in San Francisco and Berlin and is legally known as Tools for Humanity Corp. Worldcoin's past backers include Andreessen Horowitz's cryptocurrency unit, Khosla Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. The company, which co-founder Alex Blania heads as CEO, raised $100 million in an initial coin offering last year and $25 million in a 2021 venture round.
Worldcoin has developed a cryptocurrency that it aims to be a global medium of exchange. Its founders hope to use it to distribute a kind of universal basic income to help those whose jobs may be eliminated by artificial intelligence or other technological advances.
To speed adoption, the company gave away free coins to anyone who agreed to have their irises scanned by its custom-made camera. The company says it's using the scans to authenticate users and ensure no one signs up more than once, but the collection of such biometric data has drawn criticism from privacy advocates. Worldcoin has also been accused of deceiving users and potentially violating privacy laws.
Last week, the startup released its World App, billed as the first wallet designed for its ecosystem.
Funding rounds
- Greenbax Inc. (dba ZipHQ or Zip), San Francisco, $100 million, Series C: Y Combinator, CRV and Tiger Global invested in the round for this provider of a vendor management service for businesses, giving it a valuation of $1.5 billion.
- Ethernovia Inc., San Jose, $64 million, Series A: Porsche Automobile Holding SE, Qualcomm Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, AMD Ventures, Western Digital Capital, Fall Line Capital, Taiwania Capital and ENEA Capital invested in this provider of networking technology for automobiles.
- Terramino Inc., (dba Prime Roots), Berkeley, $30 million, Series B: True Ventures, Pangaea Ventures, Prosus Ventures, Top Tier Capital, Diamond Edge Ventures, SOSV/IndieBio, Solasta Ventures, Monde Nissin, Alumni Ventures and Gaingels were among the investors in the round for this developer of fermentation-produced deli meat substitutes.
Personnel
- Twitter Inc. named Linda Yaccarino as its new CEO. Twitter owner Elon Musk announced the hire of Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal Media LLC advertising executive, Friday in a tweet. Jim Gardner at the San Francisco Business Times detailed five questions the new CEO will have to answer quickly, including, most pertinently, whether she'll be able to reverse the exodus of advertisers Twitter has experienced since Musk's takeover last year.
J. Jennings Moss and Anthony Duignan-Cabrera contributed to this report.
