The World Foundation has closed a $52.5 million private token sale, locking up every WLD token sold for a full year and signaling a deliberate bet that its biometric identity network will become essential infrastructure as AI reshapes the internet.
Pantera Capital led the first close, with Bain Capital Crypto, Eightco Holdings (Nasdaq: ORBS), Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto, and other investors participating. The 12-month lockup prevents any immediate secondary market liquidation, a structure that the foundation frames as evidence of long-term commitment from strategic backers.
The capital raise arrives at a moment when the foundation is financing operations entirely through sales of its existing token treasury. A hard cap of 10 billion WLD tokens is in place, and governance-controlled inflation will not be considered until after 2038. Earlier this year, the foundation raised $65 million through a separate over-the-counter sale of roughly 239 million tokens at an average price of $0.27, with a six-month lockup. The new round doubles that lockup to one year, a structural shift that removes a larger slug of tokens from circulation for longer.
Proceeds are earmarked for expanding World ID 4.0, an enterprise-oriented update that lets third-party developers embed custom credential systems into the protocol. The foundation reports that more than 39 million individuals have joined the network, 18 million have completed physical Orb verifications, and over 475 million identity proofs have been generated. Planned integrations with Zoom, DocuSign, Okta, Vercel, and Tinder illustrate the commercial ambition.