World Fund

Daria Saharova and Danijel Višević serve as Managing Partners and drive the investment committee. Tim Schumacher, a General Partner, also sits on the IC. The firm's climate-science advisory board, which includes contributors to the IPCC, must approve each company's emissions-reduction potential before a deal can proceed, giving the science team a formal gate in the process.

World Fund uses a proprietary methodology co-developed with academic and research institutions to project a company's gigaton-scale carbon reduction potential. Every company entering due diligence undergoes a technical audit by the firm's in-house climate science team. The firm has publicly stated that companies failing to demonstrate a credible path to emissions impact are rejected regardless of financial return potential.

World Fund invests from pre-seed through Series B, making it a full-lifecycle climate investor rather than a seed-only or growth-only firm. The €350 million fund size allows lead checks across early and growth stages. The firm has led both seed rounds, such as Space Forge, and later-stage rounds alongside co-investors including the European Investment Fund.

World Fund does not invest in companies where emissions reduction is incidental rather than core to the business model. The firm has stated it avoids software-only climate plays with no direct decarbonization pathway, as well as carbon-accounting startups that facilitate offsets without underlying emissions reductions. The science gate effectively screens out companies whose climate claims cannot be validated empirically.

World Fund regularly co-invests alongside European institutional LPs and other climate-focused funds. The European Investment Fund, BPI France, and the UK's Environment Agency Pension Fund are LPs that have also co-invested directly into portfolio companies on a deal-by-deal basis. The firm targets lead-investor positions but has demonstrated willingness to syndicate with both specialist climate funds and generalist VCs entering climate rounds.

World Fund's public record shows a multi-disciplinary team spanning investment professionals and climate scientists. The firm recruited physical scientists and engineers to staff its internal climate audit function, a deliberate departure from the typical VC analyst profile. Exact headcount is not publicly disclosed, but the Amsterdam office opening in 2024 signaled a geographic expansion of the investment team into the Benelux region.

World Fund operates as a venture capital firm with an explicit climate-impact mandate, but its structure includes a formal scientific gate that is atypical. Every deal requires approval from both the investment committee and the climate-science advisory board, effectively creating a dual-fiduciary structure where financial returns and climate performance carry equal institutional weight. This is rare among climate VCs and reflects the firm's founding premise.