In brief
- Kalshi raised $185 million at a $2 billion valuation in a Series C round, it announced Wednesday.
- The round was led by crypto-focused VC firm Paradigm, with participation from several other digital assets firms.
- The sky-high valuation, which makes Kalshi a unicorn, comes as the startup deepens its push into crypto.
Predictions market startup Kalshi has raised $185 million at a $2 billion valuation, the firm announced Wednesday, elevating the startup to unicorn status amid its growing foray into the crypto world.
Cryptocurrency-focused venture capital firm Paradigm led the Series C round, with participation from Sequoia, Multicoin, Peng Zhao, Neo and Bond Capital, according to Mansour. Kalshi will use the funds, in part, to grow its technology team and facilitate its integration with brokers.
Bloomberg first reported on the fundraising round on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The Wall Street Journal soon after published a story with complete details from Kalshi co-founder and CEO, Tarek Mansour.
Kalshi received a post-money valuation of $787 million in late 2024, roughly around the time it raised $50 million in a private equity round, PitchBook data shows.
“What once felt impossible now looks inevitable,” Mansour said in his post. “Today, we celebrate our team and community who have taken prediction markets mainstream and made Kalshi one of the fastest growing companies in America.”
Kalshi’s blockbuster valuation is the latest sign of robust demand for prediction markets.
A Polymarket betting pool on the U.S. presidential election amassed more than $3 billion in trading volume, while Kalshi’s election markets topped $875 million total volume in November.
More recently, Kalshi pulled in more than $16 million for an event contract on the New York City mayoral primary’s outcome, according to its website.
As traders’ appetites for event contracts have soared, Kalshi has built out its product offerings.
Last fall, the trading platform secured approval to operate events contracts on U.S. congressional and other political races following its years-long legal battle with the CFTC. It introduced those contracts just a few weeks before Election Day on November 3, 2024.
The startup also debuted a major Web3 integration with ZeroHash, a cryptocurrency and stablecoin infrastructure provider, to accept digital asset deposits—a sign of the firm’s deep push into the crypto industry. The platform now accepts four cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, USDC, Worldcoin and Solana.
Kalshi’s unveiling of its latest valuation also comes as crypto-native prediction markets platform Polymarket reportedly notched nearly $200 million in funding at a more than $1 billion valuation, according to The Information.
Decrypt‘s parent company DASTAN launched its own prediction markets platform, Myriad Markets, in March.
Edited by James Rubin
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