Kalshi, a leading prediction markets company, has continued to attract eye popping valuations as interest in trading on real-world events has peaked. In May 2026, Kalshi raised $1.2 billion in a Series F funding round, raising the company’s overall valuation to approximately $22 billion. Based in New York, the company’s customer base includes everyday consumers, institutional investors, and businesses.

A $1 billion Series F round initially closed in early May 2026. Due to strong investor demand, a $200 million Series F extension round followed just a couple weeks later. Investors included Coatue Management, Baillie Gifford, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowtiz, and Morgan Stanley.

Kalshi was founded in 2018 by Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour, who met as students at MIT. Ms. Lara and Mr. Mansour had a vision of empowering everyday people to make money by using their specialized knowledge on certain topics. The co-founders often like to cite the example of an Ariana Grande superfan who made over $150,000 on Kalshi predicting her music chart rankings and streaming data. This Kalshi user was able to pay off his student loans as a result.

Through Kalshi’s platform, people can trade on the outcomes of real-world events spanning diverse topics such as sports, politics, pop culture, technology, and economics. Sports betting accounts for around 90% of activity on the platform.

Kalshi’s main rival is Polymarket. Polymarket was founded in 2020 by Shayne Coplan. One key advantage that Kalshi has over Polymarket is that Kalshi is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). As a CFTC-regulated exchange, Kalshi is registered as a designated contract market.

The company reported that its annual revenue now exceeds $1.5 billion. As of April 2026, the monthly trading volume on Kalshi’s platform exceeded $14 billion. In the past six months, institutional trading volume has surged over 800% on the platform. This is a particularly significant development as traditional Wall Street investors increase their participation in prediction markets. Institutional adoption from hedge funds, asset management firms, and insurance companies is an important area of future growth for Kalshi.

Prediction markets companies have attracted scrutiny from regulators over insider trading concerns. A few notable cases have attracted media headlines. Following the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, a U.S. solider was charged with using classified information to place a large bet on Polymarket regarding the likely timing of Maduro’s capture. More recently, a Google employee was charged for using confidential data to bet over $1 million on Polymarket. The wager was regarding the most searched person on Google in 2025, information only he and a small group of Google employees could access. The rising popularity of prediction markets has prompted many corporations to address the consequences of leveraging proprietary data to trade on prediction markets platforms in their insider trading policies.

Regulators have also raised gambling concerns regarding prediction markets platforms. Arizona’s attorney general filed criminal charges against Kalshi claiming that the company is operating an illegal gambling business without a license in violation of Arizona state law. Other U.S. states have also sued Kalshi for illegal sports betting.