Source: Kalshi’s valuation jumps to $11 billion after raising a $1 billion mega round

Kalshi Market, a prediction market that allows people to bet on future events, has raised a massive $1 billion round at a valuation of $11 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal. The round comes less than two months after the seven-year-old startup announced a previous $300 million fundraising at a $5 billion valuation.

The latest round is led by the company’s returning investors Sequoia and Capital G, the person said. Other investors in Calci include Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Anthos Capital, and NEO.

Calci and Sequoia declined to comment. Capital G did not respond to our request for comment.

Bloomberg reported that Calci’s main competitor, Polymarket, was in talks last month to raise another financing round at a valuation of $12 billion to $15 billion, just weeks after closing a $1 billion round at a pre-cash valuation of $8 billion.

Kalshi and Polymarket rose in popularity last year after prediction markets allowed people to bet on the outcome of the presidential election. These betting sites have become more prominent after they correctly predicted the results of the New York City mayor’s election earlier this month.

For Mamdani’s race against Cuomo, Kalshi bought advertising space on New York subway cars and ran live screens displaying each candidate’s odds of victory, a marketing campaign that undoubtedly increased the company’s brand awareness among New Yorkers.

Kalshi allows people in over 140 countries to bet on various future events, from Time magazine’s choice of Person of the Year for 2025 and the Rotten Tomatoes score for Wicked, to future outcomes in the future, such as who will win the next US presidential election.

In mid-October, the company’s annual trading volume reached $50 billion, representing a more than 1,000-fold increase from the trading volume of about $300 million last year, the New York Times reported.

Calci was founded by two former hedge fund traders, Tarek Mansour and Laona Lara. The duo met as undergraduates at MIT while studying computer science and mathematics.

Prediction markets have historically been controversial and subject to legal challenges because they operate in the gray area between financial instruments and traditional gambling.

While Calci won the right for Americans to use its platform after successfully filing a lawsuit against the CFTC last year, the company is currently embroiled in legal disputes with several government regulators who claim its activities are illegal gambling.

Polymarket has been banned from serving US residents since 2022, following a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In July, the company acquired a derivatives exchange and clearing house. This move helped Polymarket gain re-entry into the US market. In September, Shane Coplan, the company’s CEO and founder, told X: “Polymarket has been given the green light to start operating in the USA by the CFTC.”