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The Series C round was led by crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm. Additional participation came from a robust group of investors including Sequoia Capital, Multicoin Capital, Neo, Bond Capital, and Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao. This latest funding follows Kalshi's $30 million Series A round in February 2021, which was led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Charles Schwab, Henry Kravis, SV Angel, Neo, and YC Continuity.
"I'm excited to announce our $185M Series C valuing Kalshi at $2B," said Tarek Mansour, co-founder and CEO of Kalshi, in a post on X. "People choose to work at Kalshi not because of the money we've raised, but because of our ambition: build the most important financial market on the planet. Today, we celebrate our team and community who have taken prediction markets mainstream and made Kalshi one of the fastest growing companies in America. What once felt impossible now looks inevitable.”
Kalshi was founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, who identified an opportunity to create a novel asset class for retail and institutional investors to hedge everyday risks and capitalize on their opinions. Unlike traditional assets, event contracts allow investors to directly trade on the outcomes of future events, ranging from economic indicators and weather patterns to political outcomes and entertainment.
A key differentiator for Kalshi is its status as the first federally regulated exchange dedicated to event outcomes. Kalshi received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) in November 2020, making it one of only 16 DCMs in the U.S. This regulatory clarity provides a secure and transparent environment for trading, distinguishing Kalshi from other platforms in the prediction market space.
The new capital will be strategically deployed to scale Kalshi's technology team, enabling deeper integration with more brokerage platforms. Kalshi's markets are already accessible through platforms like Robinhood Markets and Webull, and the company plans to pursue more than a dozen new integrations. This expansion aims to broaden accessibility for investors seeking to engage with event contracts and further cement Kalshi’s position as a leading financial market.
Luana Lopes Lara, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Kalshi, emphasized the unique value proposition: "Investing is about putting money behind an opinion of what will happen in the future. Yet, traditional assets like stocks don’t provide direct exposure to event outcomes. Kalshi solves this problem by allowing investors to strip away all the other noise that influences asset price and isolates trading on the event itself."
The growth of prediction markets has gained significant traction, especially following events like the U.S. presidential election, where they offered alternative insights to traditional polling. Kalshi's success and this latest funding round signal a strong investor appetite for regulated platforms that provide direct exposure to real-world outcomes.
About Kalshi
Founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, Kalshi is the first federally regulated exchange dedicated to trading directly on the outcomes of future events. Operating as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) approved by the CFTC, Kalshi enables investors to buy "Yes" or "No" positions on whether an event will happen or not through its novel asset class, event contracts. Kalshi's vision is to allow people to capitalize on their opinions and hedge everyday risks by providing a transparent and regulated platform for trading on real-world outcomes.Compiled by CMO Intern team
