Foreword In a world facing accelerating and interconnected global challenges, from decarbonization and water resilience to sustainable urban development and healthy living, early-stage innovation is essential to delivering the breakthrough solutions we urgently need. The challenge today is not invention, however, but scale. Innovation alone falls short. Increasingly, evidence shows that early demand signals from large buyers, including procurement commitments, purchasing agreements and advance market commitments, are among the most powerful levers for scaling impact.6,7 When governments, cities and corporations commit early to low-carbon and sustainable solutions, they do more than support innovation. They shape markets, reduce risk, unlock private investment and accelerate adoption far more effectively than supply-side measures alone. Despite this, many early-stage entrepreneurs continue to operate on the margins. Only around 2% of global impact investment assets are allocated to seed and start-up ventures,8 even as investors cite difficulty identifying differentiated business models and scalable solutions.9 This disconnect between capital availability and market readiness slows the transition of promising innovations from pilot to market and leaves significant potential unrealized. UpLink was built to bridge these gaps. Working alongside World Economic Forum centres and initiatives, UpLink creates shared pathways where ventures gain the partnerships, credibility and market access needed to scale. Meanwhile, investors and corporate leaders gain access to high-quality early-stage solutions aligned with their strategic priorities. By sourcing and scaling purpose-driven ventures across critical systems, including climate and nature, health, water, cities and emerging technologies, UpLink advances the Forum’s mission to align innovation with long-term competitiveness and inclusive growth. Forum corporate partners are increasingly engaging with early-stage ventures through UpLink to send clear demand signals to the market. This enables them to test frontier technologies, access new talent and solutions, reduce research and development (R&D) costs and explore emerging opportunities with lower risk before deploying significant capital. The integration of data, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics across UpLink is central to our approach, strengthening how innovation is sourced, supported and measured. From venture sourcing and selection to investor engagement and impact measurement, these capabilities enable more evidence-based decision-making and help quantify the value created through UpLink. Importantly, AI is not only an enabler of the platform but a defining feature of the solutions emerging from the ecosystem. Today, more than 139 UpLink Ventures actively apply AI across domains, including biodiversity monitoring, water and agricultural optimization, access to financial and health services, and predictive tools to support vulnerable communities. These applications illustrate how AI can accelerate data-driven, scalable and system-level impact. Looking ahead, UpLink will continue to support ventures as they scale their innovations, expand into new markets and cities, and tackle global challenges by harnessing the latest technologies, including AI-enabled solutions. Together, let us continue turning challenges into opportunities and celebrating innovation that truly matters. John Dutton Head, UpLink, World Economic Forum Uplink Annual Impact Report March 2026 3

UpLink Annual Impact Report 2026