Kalshi Co-Founder Luana Lopes Lara on Regulated Prediction Markets

The Vision Behind Kalshi

• 💡 Prediction markets have long been studied for forecasting and leveraging the wisdom of crowds, but Kalshi aimed to make them regulated and mainstream.
• 🎯 The company allows users to bet on various events, including sports, political elections, and entertainment awards.

Overcoming Regulatory Hurdles

• ⚖️ Kalshi faced a three-year battle with the government, including litigation and suing the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), to legalize prediction markets.
• ✅ A major achievement was securing federal approval for election markets in the U.S., marking the first legal contracts of their kind in over a century.

Luana Lopes Lara's Journey

• 🇧🇷 Born in Brazil in 1996, Luana Lopes Lara is recognized as the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire and co-founder of Kalshi.
• 🎓 Her diverse background includes being a math Olympiad winner, a professional ballerina, an MIT graduate, and a quantitative trader at Citadel Securities.
• 🤝 She co-founded Kalshi in 2018 with Tareq Mansour, driven by a shared passion for trading.

Kalshi's Rapid Growth and Funding

• 📈 Kalshi has experienced rapid growth, becoming one of the fastest-growing non-AI companies, with annualized volume increasing from $300 million to $40 billion.
• 💰 The company reached an $11 billion valuation in December 2025 after a $1 billion funding round, attracting investments from firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.
• 🚀 Growth has been fueled by the introduction of sports markets, partnerships with brokerages like Robinhood and Webull, and scaling to over 3,300 markets.