OpenAI CEO Sam Altman plans to raise about $100 million in funding for his Worldcoin cryptocurrency project.
According to three people with knowledge of the deal, Sam Altman is in preliminary talks to raise the cash as he prepares to launch Worldcoin in the next few weeks.
The group includes both existing and new investors, a source said.
The company’s previous investors included Khosla Ventures and crypto fund Andreessen Horowitz, as well as FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman.
Altman plans to use eyeball scanning technology to create a global identification system that can be applied to gain free access to his own global currency, Worldcoin.
Worldcoin has been criticized on a number of issues, primarily because biometric scanning poses privacy risks.
The company’s Web site claims that it will not store iris scans and that the device will not harm users’ eyes.
Earlier, Worldcoin unveiled a cryptocurrency wallet app of the same name. The wallet will initially support the World Coin and Ethereum ecosystems.
The World App mobile wallet app is already available for download in the App Store and Google Play. World Coin is available in more than 80 countries.
Venmo, a payment service owned by U.S. company PayPal with more than 60 million customers in the U.S. alone, recently announced that it will add the ability to make cryptocurrency transfers.