Platform Achieves Global Expansion Following Major Funding Round
US prediction market platform Kalshi announced it has expanded its services to more than 140 countries through a unified liquidity pool, following a $300 million Series D funding round that values the company at $5 billion.
CEO and co-founder Tarek Mansour confirmed the news on social media, stating: “Since then, we’ve grown over 3x, hit $50bn of annualised volume and became the largest prediction market in the world.”
The platform’s global expansion includes access to India and China, the world’s two most populous nations, as well as most of Latin America, including Brazil. However, Kalshi is not yet available in the UK, Australia, France, or Canada.
Series D Funding Led by Sequoia Capital and a16z
The Series D funding round was led by Sequoia Capital and a16z Capital Management, with participation from Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, and General Catalyst. Notable individual investors include comedian and actor Kevin Hart and basketball star Kevin Durant.
a16z Capital Management commented on the investment: “Prediction markets have established themselves not only as a new asset class, but as an extremely useful tool for predicting the future. And Kalshi is the leading company in the space. Not only does it have more volume than every other prediction market combined, but it’s the fastest growing tech company in the world outside AI.”
Market Impact and Industry Competition
The announcement triggered an immediate 5% drop in DraftKings’ share price. This follows recent volatility in the sports betting sector, where nearly $7 billion was wiped off the combined value of Flutter Entertainment and DraftKings when Kalshi introduced same game parlays for the NFL.
Kalshi previously raised $185 million in a Series C round in June, which valued the company at $2 billion at the time.
Growing Competition in Prediction Markets
The prediction market sector has seen increased investment activity in recent months. Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market operating on the Polygon blockchain, announced a $2 billion investment this week from Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, valuing the company at approximately $8 billion.
Other market entrants include daily fantasy sports operator Underdog, which plans to launch prediction market offerings following a partnership with Crypto.com, and FanDuel, which is expanding into financial futures markets through a joint venture with CME Group, operator of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
In July, Polymarket acquired exchange QXC and clearing house QC in a $112 million deal to accelerate its return to the US market.
Regulatory Considerations
Pet Berisha, creator of the Sporting Crypto newsletter, raised questions about potential regulatory challenges following Kalshi’s expansion. “Kalshi’s legal bills must be huge. They are constantly fighting, suing and being sued by states in the US,” Berisha wrote on LinkedIn. “Expanding to 140 countries is going to open 140 cans of worms. It will be interesting to see how many countries of those 140 geolock Kalshi over the next six months.”
Source: Kalshi
