Amid the convergence of crypto and finance, prediction markets are becoming the next billion-dollar track. On October 10th, the US compliant prediction market platform Kalshi completed a funding round of over $300 million, soaring to a valuation of $5 billion. This round was led by Sequoia Capital and a16z, with follow-on investments from existing shareholders like Paradigm. Kalshi also plans to allow customers from over 140 countries to place bets on its website.
Just four months ago, Kalshi was valued at $2 billion in a $185 million round in June. Now doubled, this reflects investors' fervent confidence in prediction markets.
All-Star Team and VC Lineup
Kalshi was co-founded by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara. Mansour, a graduate of MIT, is also a seasoned player in quantitative trading, having served as an executive at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and is proficient in derivatives pricing and risk management; Lara comes from a Brazilian fintech background and was previously responsible for emerging market strategies at Morgan Stanley. The duo targeted the overlooked "event contracts" in traditional finance – essentially prediction bets on future events.
Unlike Polymarket's blockchain-native approach, Kalshi chose to build a compliant platform from scratch, early on obtaining regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), becoming the first regulated prediction market in the US. This "hard but responsible path," as described by a16z Growth Fund partner Alex Immerman, allowed Kalshi to stand out amidst regulatory storms.
The team lineup is Kalshi's core competitiveness. Beyond the founding duo, Kalshi has attracted numerous Wall Street elites and technical experts. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Eli Levine came from Google Cloud, where he led large-scale data infrastructure projects, ensuring the platform's low latency and high throughput. Product Lead Sarah Chen moved from Coinbase; she led the expansion of Kalshi's sports and political markets, seamlessly integrating complex parlays.
It's worth mentioning that Donald Trump Jr. joined Kalshi's advisory board in January 2025. The eldest son of Trump not only brings political insight but also helped the platform's explosion in the election market – during the 2024 US presidential election, Kalshi's prediction accuracy for the winner's probability reached as high as 85%, far surpassing traditional polls. The team size now exceeds 150 people, covering quantitative models, compliance, and user growth, with an average professional experience of over 10 years. This "Wall Street + Silicon Valley" hybrid model keeps Kalshi ahead in product iteration: expanding from single event contracts to multi-dimensional markets including sports, weather, and economic data, with average daily active users exceeding 100,000.
The VC lineup behind the funding is exceptionally strong, highlighting the strategic value of prediction markets. Lead investor Sequoia Capital is a Silicon Valley legend, with a portfolio including Airbnb and Stripe, and it early on bet on Kalshi's regulatory advantages; a16z, as a crypto-native fund, saw its founder Marc Andreessen publicly praise Kalshi for "reimagining event-driven finance." Paradigm, which led the $185 million round in June, made an additional investment this time, cumulatively injecting over $200 million. Other participants include Coinbase Ventures and Bond Capital, the latter helmed by former a16z partner Mary Meeker, focusing on data-driven platforms. Kalshi's total funding has reached approximately $591 million across 3 rounds: a $15 million Seed round in 2021 (led by SV Angel), a $50 million Series A in 2023, and the current Series D.
Another Kalshi competitor, Polymarket, was founded in 2020 by Shayne Coplan. Positioned as a blockchain-native prediction market, it relies on the Polygon chain, allowing users to bet directly with USDC. On October 7, 2025, Polymarket announced receiving up to a $20 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.
Comparing with Polymarket
Data performance is the hardcore support for Kalshi's funding. Kalshi's liquidity pool depth has an average slippage of <0.1%, far lower than the industry average. Financially, the platform is already profitable, with revenue exceeding $200 million in the first half of 2025, primarily from 0.5%-1% transaction fees. According to Dune data, Kalshi's weekly prediction market trading volume has rapidly risen from being a chaser to surpassing Polymarket.
Kalshi outperforms Polymarket in multiple dimensions. First, regulatory compliance: Kalshi is a CFTC Designated Contract Market (DCM), allowing US users access without a VPN; Polymarket lost US traffic due to a 2022 ban, relying solely on overseas users, and recently plans to re-enter the US market through the acquisition of QCX LLC, though the specific launch timeline remains unknown.
Second, user experience: Kalshi supports USD deposits and simplified KYC, making it suitable for institutions; Polymarket relies on crypto wallets, involving gas fees and higher volatility. In terms of market coverage: Kalshi holds the majority share in the US market but has a lower share in other countries globally, with richer offerings in sports and economic contracts; Polymarket leans towards political and crypto events, but its US penetration remains low due to compliance factors.
Latest data from polymarketanalytics shows that while Kalshi's total trading volume is only $4 billion, far behind Polymarket, it leads Polymarket in the total number of prediction markets and total open interest.
If we narrow the time frame, we can see Kalshi's rapid development momentum. Data monitored by Artemis shows that in the past year, Kalshi's market trading volume surged 135-fold to $956.3 million, while Polymarket's was only $464.6 million.
The latest data from The Block shows that the number of daily active prediction markets on Kalshi has hit a record high, rising to over 75,000.
It is worth noting that on November 6, 2024, Kalshi topped the free chart on the Apple App Store, surpassing Polymarket. In October of this year, John Wang, Kalshi's Head of Cryptocurrency, stated in an interview with The Block at the Token 2049 conference in Singapore that Kalshi would appear on "every major crypto app and exchange" within the next 12 months.
The founder of Polymarket hinted via Twitter about launching a POLY token, leading the market to watch whether Kalshi might also launch a token subsequently. Although there are minor market rumors speculating that it might explore tokenization in the future, neither official channels nor the funding announcement mentioned launching a token.
