Kalshi Hits $2B Valuation After $185M Raise, Aiming to Reshape Global Financial Markets

Prediction market platform Kalshi has raised $185 million in new funding, lifting its valuation to $2 billion. The milestone marks a major step forward as the company secures its footing in an increasingly competitive market.

Pushing Forward With Growth Plans

Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s co-founder and chief executive, said the new funding will support the company’s growth, with plans to expand the tech team and extend access to its event contracts through more trading platforms.

Kalshi’s contracts are currently offered through partnerships with trading apps like Robinhood Markets and Webull. The goal now is to extend its reach across a wider range of brokerages, giving more users access to its prediction markets.

Mansour stated on X that the company is now seeing real progress on ideas that once seemed impossible. He added that the team is motivated by more than just funding—it’s driven by a broader mission to build a market that plays a central role in how people interact with global financial events.

People choose to work at Kalshi not because of the money we’ve raised, but because of our ambition: build the most important financial market on the planet. Today, we celebrate our team and community who have taken prediction markets mainstream and made Kalshi one of the fastest growing companies in America.

Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s co-founder

The latest investment round was led by Paradigms. Other backers included Sequoia Capital, Multicoin Capital, and several other well-established venture firms.

Before this round, Kalshi had raised $156 million since its founding. The company was launched in 2018 by Mansour and Lopes Lara. Since then, it has grown into one of the most closely watched platforms in the event trading space.

Prediction Markets Take Centre Stage

Prediction markets are fast becoming an alternative to traditional polls. Rather than asking people for their opinions, they measure what participants are willing to risk based on what they think will happen.

These markets are gaining serious attention. Kalshi’s own data showed a sharp spike in trading during the November 2024 U.S. presidential election. Its election-related contracts pulled in $875 million in volume. Polymarket, a rival platform, recorded over $3 billion in trades during the same period.

To meet rising demand, Kalshi has expanded its contract offerings. Just weeks before the U.S. election, it introduced markets tied to congressional races and other political outcomes.

Kalshi’s platform also covers areas like inflation, interest rates, crypto assets, and even the weather. But sport has stood out as the busiest category in recent months. Bloomberg Intelligence reported that during March and early April, sports trades made up 79% of Kalshi’s total volume.

This wide mix of topics shows how flexible and appealing the platform has become for everyday traders and seasoned investors alike.

Kalshi’s Legal Win Clears Path for Expansion

Kalshi’s road to growth wasn’t without obstacles. Its entry into political event markets sparked a legal fight with U.S. regulators, putting its future in question. But a major court decision and a retreat from the regulator have now turned the tide in Kalshi’s favour.

How the regulatory battle unfolded:

• CFTC initially blocked Kalshi over concerns its political markets breached federal gambling laws
• A federal appeals court ruled in October 2024 that Kalshi could resume offering political event markets
• Kalshi relaunched its political contracts just before the 2024 U.S. election, capturing strong market interest
• The CFTC dropped its appeal in May 2025, closing the case and easing regulatory uncertainty
• Both Kalshi and Polymarket saw trading activity surge during the presidential election period

Charlie Noyes, a general partner at Paradigm, sees Kalshi as an emerging tool for tracking public sentiment. He believes prediction markets will increasingly shape how finance and media react to real-world developments.

On Kalshi, users currently assign a 33% chance that the U.S. and Iran will sign a new nuclear deal before the end of the year. If it happens, it would highlight how closely market-based forecasts can reflect real-world developments.