A company built around betting on future events is now worth $40 billion. Prediction-market operator Kalshi announced on Thursday, October 29, 2026 that it raised $1 billion in a new funding round valuing it at $40 billion — nearly 82% higher than its $22 billion valuation just five months ago. It is one of the fastest rises in private-market value in recent years, and it says a lot about how mainstream prediction markets have become.
What Happened
The new round, Kalshi’s Series G, was co-led by Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management, with Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group also taking part, according to Reuters. It is Kalshi’s second $1 billion raise in roughly five months. The previous round, in May 2026, was led by Coatue and valued the company at $22 billion. Kalshi was valued at about $5 billion in October 2025 and about $11 billion last December. In about a year, its private valuation has grown roughly eightfold.
Kalshi said it will use the money to expand its exchange, reach more users around the world, and launch new products including indices, single-stock perpetual futures and markets for trading computing power. It also recently announced a partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices to build indices based on prediction markets, and partnerships with the NBA.
What Is a Prediction Market, Anyway?
Instead of buying a stock, you buy a contract tied to a future event — for example, whether a team wins a championship, whether an election goes a certain way, or whether an economic number comes in above or below a forecast. The price works like a probability: a contract trading at 60 cents that pays out $1 if the event happens effectively implies about a 60% chance. As news changes, the price moves.
Kalshi runs a federally regulated exchange in the United States, started with sports and election contracts, and is now pushing hard into financial markets — the same territory as traditional exchanges like CME and ICE.
Why It Happened
First, trading volume. Kalshi says its overall annualised trading volume now passes $1 trillion, and its non-sports markets alone now generate more than $1 billion in annualised revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal as cited by CoinTelegraph. Data provider DefiLlama put its trading volume over the past 30 days at about $15.8 billion.
Second, the calendar: a busy year including the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the NFL season and trading around the US midterm elections has brought in new users.
Third, expansion: in September 2026, Kalshi entered the perpetual futures market after approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Perpetual futures let traders bet on price moves without an expiry date and are popular in crypto and financial trading; adding single-stock versions would put Kalshi in direct competition with much bigger, older exchanges.
Why It Matters
A $40 billion valuation puts Kalshi in the same league as Coinbase, a public company around far longer, showing how far prediction markets have come. But a private valuation is not a stock price: it is set by a small number of investors in a funding round, not by millions of traders daily, and reflects what those investors think Kalshi could become, not proven profits.
There are legal risks too. On October 28, 2026, Utah’s Attorney General filed criminal charges against Kalshi and its co-founders, Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, accusing the company of promoting illegal online gambling and allowing an undercover agent to place sports wagers through its platform. The outcome was still pending, and similar legal fights over sports contracts have followed Kalshi in other states.
What Happens Next
Watch whether new products — single-stock perps, leveraged event contracts and compute markets — actually attract traders or stretch Kalshi too far, and how regulators and courts treat prediction markets that look increasingly like financial exchanges and, in some cases, like sports betting. If Kalshi keeps growing its non-sports business and stays on the right side of regulators, a public listing could eventually follow, though none has been announced. If legal challenges pile up, growth could slow no matter how strong trading numbers look.
Final Thoughts
Kalshi’s rise from a $5 billion startup to a $40 billion company in about a year is remarkable, even by startup standards, and shows investors believe betting on events — done openly, on a regulated exchange — is becoming a normal part of finance. But a valuation can rise much faster than a business can prove itself; the next chapter will be decided less by fundraising headlines and more by whether real traders keep showing up and whether the law lets them.
Key figures:
- New funding: $1 billion (Series G, October 29, 2026)
- New valuation: $40 billion, up about 82% from $22 billion in May 2026
- Previous valuation: about $5 billion in October 2025, about $11 billion in December 2025
- Co-leads: Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management
- Non-sports annualised revenue: more than $1 billion
- Overall annualised trading volume: more than $1 trillion
Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Sources: Reuters report on Kalshi’s funding round (October 29, 2026); CoinTelegraph and PYMNTS coverage of the announcement (October 29, 2026).
