Luana López Lara, co-founder of prediction market Carsi, became the youngest self-made billionaire after her company announced $1 billion in new funding on Tuesday.
The latest round of funding, led by crypto-focused venture firm Paradigm, values Kalsi at $11 billion, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Y Combinator.
López Lara, 29, overtook previous Scale AI title holder Lucy Guo and pop icon Taylor Swift, who briefly held that honor earlier this year. López Lara, a Brazilian-born MIT computer science graduate, co-founded Karsi in 2019 with Tarek Mansour, who is the same age and currently on the billionaire list.
Still, both Carsi founders narrowly edged out Shayne Coplan, 27, founder of rival prediction platform Polymarket, who became the youngest self-made billionaire in October, in the youth race. Coplan's rise comes after New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) committed to investing $2 billion in Polymarket at a valuation of $8 billion.
Kalshi allows users to trade the outcome of real-world events such as election results, interest rate changes, and even celebrity divorces through regulated event-based contracts. The platform was registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in November 2020, giving it formal regulatory status rarely seen in prediction markets.
In contrast, Polymarket is a blockchain-based prediction market that uses the USDC stablecoin to allow users to bet on the outcome of events without traditional financial regulations. Although it has gained popularity due to its wide range of topics and quick market reactions, it has had to overcome legal hurdles, including a settlement with the CFTC in 2022.
Both companies are reshaping how people interact with information and risk. What was once an informal bar bet on who will win the Super Bowl and when inflation will cool down is now a multibillion-dollar business. In this new world, anyone with a strong opinion and some money can bet on future events in the same way that traders bet on stocks and commodities.
