Kalshi Raises $300 Million, Valuing Prediction Market Startup at $5 Billion

Popular prediction market platform Kalshi has announced a $300 million funding round with participation from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, and more. It values the company at $5 billion, according to Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour.

In doing this, Kalshi plans to expand its business into an additional 140 countries, as it currently only operates in the U.S..

It comes the same week that rival Polymarket was valued at $9 billion after a $2 billion investment from New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE. The valuation, in turn, made Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan the youngest “self-made” billionaire, according to Bloomberg.

Since its June 2021 launch, Kalshi has processed $10.5 billion worth of notional volume, per Dune data, with $3.2 billion of that volume occurring in the last 30 days. The platform has grown exponentially over the past year, and even more so over the past month as it has begun to challenge Polymarket’s dominance.

Kalshi surpassed Polymarket for weekly prediction market transactions in early September, according to Dune data, accounting for 66% of the market share last week. However, skeptics of the platform highlight that it isn’t fully on-chain, which leaves potential holes in its data—although it is plotting to expand further on-chain.

Prediction markets enable users to wager money on real-world events, such as elections, sporting events, or geopolitical moves. Polymarket rose to popularity last year as it became a go-to source for mainstream media to measure sentiment during the U.S. presidential election, as it showed a likely win for President Trump ahead of traditional polling methods.

Kalshi has now started to ride the prediction market wave, primarily because its sports markets are gaining traction. Following the $300 million raise, the prediction market now plans to expand its operations outside of the U.S. and into more than 140 countries.

Conversely, Polymarket is currently preparing to re-enter the U.S. market after being effectively banned in 2022 by the CFTC. But following a no-action letter in September of this year, Polymarket is positioned for a stateside relaunch—potentially setting it up to steal back some market share from Kalshi.