OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in “preliminary talks” about a $100m investment in the Worldcoin startup, according to the Financial Times, citing sources.
According to the publication, the group of potential investors includes venture firms that had previously funded the project.
In 2021, in $25 million investment round for Worldcoin, investors included Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group and a group of angel investors, including FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Additionally, according to insiders, at the start of last year the startup sold tokens for $100m, with a total supply of $3bn. However the crypto winter and the collapse of major companies could have shaken the company’s fortune.
“This is a bear market, a crypto winter. Notably, the project in this environment has attracted such an amount of investment,” said one of the sources.
The Worldcoin main product is the World ID protocol, based on zero-knowledge proofs. The technology enables verification using biometric data, while preserving anonymity.
Earlier, Sam Altman proposed to pay users for retinal scans.
As reported in May, the company released its own World App crypto wallet, which offers commission-free transfers for verified users. The app supports stablecoins USDC and DAI, as well as Ethereum (ETH), Worldcoin (WDC) and wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).