Worldcoin, the blockchain project of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has closed a $100 million funding deal in its biometrics project. New investors joined previous backers, including a16z, Coinbase’s venture capital division, Khosla Ventures, and Sam Bankman-Fried.
Worldcoin’s $100 Million Seed Round
VC funding for Web3 startups dropped 82% YoY from $9.1 billion in Q1 2022 to $1.7 billion in 2023, making Worldcoin’s $100 million fundraiser a bright spot in a bleak year for crypto investments. Despite the crypto winter and regulatory battles, there is still enormous demand for investments in the crypto space.
Biometric Keys: Freedom or Surveillance?
Worldcoin aims to bring biometric identification to Web 3.0 with ID authentication support for retina scans. While some view it as a high-tech Orwellian surveillance capitalist tool, others believe Web 3 techniques like zk-proofs and multi-party computation can keep biometric data private while proving the user’s identity to servers.
