Luana Lopes Lara, co-founder of the prediction market Kalshi, has achieved the status of the youngest female self-made billionaire after the company disclosed a new $1 billion funding round on Tuesday.
The funding, spearheaded by crypto-oriented venture firm Paradigm, has valued Kalshi at $11 billion. Notable investors include Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Y Combinator.
At 29, Lopes Lara surpasses the previous record holder, Lucy Guo of Scale AI, and pop star Taylor Swift, who momentarily held the title earlier this year. Born in Brazil and a computer science alumna of MIT, Lopes Lara co-founded Kalshi in 2019 alongside Tarek Mansour, who also makes his debut on the billionaire list at the same age.
However, both founders were outpaced in the youth category by Shayne Coplan, 27, founder of the competing prediction platform Polymarket, who became the youngest self-made billionaire in October. Coplan’s success followed a $2 billion investment commitment from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, into Polymarket at an $8 billion valuation.
Kalshi permits users to speculate on the outcomes of real-world events—such as election results, interest rate adjustments, or even celebrity breakups—through regulated, event-based contracts. The platform attained registration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in November 2020, granting it a regulatory status seldom seen in prediction markets.
In contrast, Polymarket operates as a blockchain-based prediction market using USDC stablecoins, enabling users to bet on event outcomes without conventional financial regulation. It has become popular for its diverse array of topics and quicker market responses but has faced legal challenges, including a settlement with the CFTC in 2022.
Both companies are transforming how individuals interact with information and risk. What began as casual bar bets—on topics like who would win the Super Bowl or when inflation would subside—have now evolved into billion-dollar enterprises. In this evolving landscape, anyone with a strong viewpoint and some capital can wager on future events just as traders do in stocks or commodities.
