Prediction Market Kalshi Raises $185M, Surges To $2B Valuation

Prediction market platform Kalshi has secured a $185 million Series C funding round, pushing the company's valuation to $2 billion.

The round was led by Paradigm and Sequoia, with participation from both new and existing investors.

"Kalshi today is one of the fastest growing companies in America," co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour told CNBC in an interview.

According to Mansour, the platform has seen rapid growth across all major metrics.

"We 50x'd our user base last year. This year, the user base is growing around 100x, and the number of markets has scaled 15x just from last October," he said.

Kalshi's growth is not only reflected in user numbers but also in financial performance.

"Our revenue has scaled meaningfully and the company is doing very well on the financial side," Mansour said.

The fresh funding will be used to expand Kalshi's talent pool, scale market offerings, and meet rising demand from brokerages seeking to integrate Kalshi's prediction markets.

"We've built an incredible talent density in New York," Mansour said, adding that Kalshi is recruiting engineers, traders, economists, and product designers, with many hires coming from both Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

"We cannot compete with the salaries that some hedge funds are paying," Mansour noted, but said equity remains a key part of Kalshi's compensation strategy.

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"People don't join Kalshi for the fancy investors or the money. They join for the mission, what we're building."

Kalshi has also expanded its market offerings, growing from around 100 markets in October to approximately 1,500 today, with plans to double or triple that number by year's end.

Key growth areas include sports and political prediction markets.

Mansour pointed out that Kalshi's markets had provided real-time pricing that, in some cases, outpaced traditional Wall Street expectations.

Reflecting on the recent New York City mayoral race, Mansour said, "Our markets were not really caught off guard. Our markets were pricing it."

Kalshi's data also showed interesting demographic splits in trading patterns during the election.

According to Mansour, women predominantly backed Mamdani, while the support among men was evenly split.

Younger participants leaned toward Mamdani, while older ones favored Cuomo.

In political prediction markets, Kalshi is already seeing volume around the Democratic primaries.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gavin Newsom are currently leading the odds, according to Mansour.

“AOC is around 14%, Newsom is at around 13%, and Buttigieg is below 10%.”

Asked about confidence in these long-range predictions, Mansour responded, "There's a lot that can happen in three and a half years, but it's a gauge. This is where we're at today and this is what the market thinks."

Mansour also noted a sharp increase in odds for New York Mayor Eric Adams in recent days.

“Eric Adams has shot up 400% in the last 36 hours… I always say 24% is 24%. It's not zero. He could pull it off."

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