“Kalshi” is emerging as a business to watch with its platform model as a prediction market or Prediction Market. It operates on blockchain technology, providing a space for people to invest, bet, and trade the probabilities of various events—from politics, economics, technology, sports, to global issues like government policies or anticipated financial market trends that may or may not occur in the future.
This business model is gaining strong momentum worldwide, with only two major competitors. Kalshi, a startup founded by two MIT alumni, achieved a company valuation exceeding $11 billion USD in just six years. One of the key figures behind this success is “Luana Lopes Lara.” She is the co-founder of Kalshi who has become the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world. She succeeded Lucy Guo, who had previously held this title before Taylor Swift, with a net worth exceeding $1.3 billion USD, according toForbes.
The journey of Luana Lopes Lara began in a family full of knowledge and ambition. From a ballet dancer who trained intensely, she transitioned to a role as a technologist, developer, and executive. This article from Thairath Money'sHow to Make Moneycolumn introduces this new billionaire who is changing the financial world and laying new foundations for capitalism, viewing everything as convertible into wealth.
Before Luana Lopes Lara became a key figure in the tech industry, she was born and raised in Brazil. She later traveled to the United States to pursue her dream as a developer and entrepreneur. She told Forbes that the toughest period in her lifewas during high school,when she had to juggle both academic studies and ballet practice.
In high school in Brazil, Luana Lopes Lara would wake early to attend regular classes like any other student until noon. Then from 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM, she attended ballet lessons and practice sessions. At that time, she aspired to be a professional ballet dancer.
Competition in the ballet community was fierce. She recounted that at the Bolshoi Theater School, which teaches the renowned techniques inherited from Russia's Bolshoi Theatre, her dance instructor would use a light focused under her leg to help her balance beautifully on one foot. Moreover, rival dancers sometimes resorted to sabotage, such as secretly placing shards of glass in competitors' ballet shoes to weaken them.
Ultimately, Luana Lopes Lara succeeded in becoming a ballet dancer and traveled to Vienna, Austria. However, after only nine months performing there, she decided to retire from the stage and never returned.
With the knowledge, intelligence, and skills she had developed throughout her studies in Brazil, influenced by her mother, a math teacher, and her father, an electrical engineer, she used her evenings after ballet practice to study. This dedication earned her numerous academic awards, including a gold medal at the Brazilian Astronomy Olympiad and a bronze medal at the Santa Catarina Mathematics Olympiad, an international math competition.
She had a clear dream before leaving performing arts—to become the "next Steve Jobs." Luana Lopes Lara chose to study computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. It was there that her future changed, allowing her to pursue the technology path she had always dreamed of.
While studying at MIT, she met Tarek Mansour, a classmate from Lebanon. They became close friends as international students in the same field, attending classes together and interning at the same companies.
Before co-founding Kalshi, Luana Lopes Lara interned at Bridgewater, a fund management company of Ray Dalio, and Citadel, a major hedge fund. Meanwhile, Tarek Mansour interned in finance at Goldman Sachs. Both later interned together at Five Rings Capital in New York City in 2018.
From their experiences in finance, they recognized agapin the market: most trading was driven by people's views on the future, trying to reflect these perspectives in markets. Traders often considered external factors like election results or the likelihood of natural disasters when making investment decisions.
On their way home, they discussed the idea that there should be a way for people to directly trade "the probability of events" instead of going through traditional financial markets that are complex and costly. This inspired them to found “Kalshi” in 2018, with the concept of creating an exchange where people could trade directly on event outcomes.
That year, Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour applied to join the startup incubator Y Combinator and were accepted in 2019 with an initial investment of $150,000 USD to launch the platform and develop the business model.
However, the legal status of prediction markets was unclear at the time, requiring the company to obtain federal approval to operate legally. They reached out to over 40 law firms, but none were willing to assist,because the founders were considered too young and the company too small.After graduating, nearly two years passed without Kalshi launching any products or making a debut. If this continued, the company risked failing and becoming worthless. This coincided with the severe COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the founders to work separately from their homes in England and Lebanon.
Then fortune smiled upon them when Jeff Bandman, a lawyer and former official of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), agreed to help with federal approval and to handle regulatory challenges.
Finally, in November 2020, Kalshi received approval from the CFTC to operate as a Designated Contract Market (DCM), categorizing the company's prediction market under a type of derivative called "Event Contracts."
Since then, Kalshi has become one of the first successful prediction market companies, receiving funding from major backers including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Paradigm. Luana Lopes Lara, at age 29, became the world's youngest self-made female billionaire after Kalshi raised over $1 billion in 2025, valuing the company at $11 billion.
Kalshi provides a prediction market platform where users apply their information, news, knowledge, and viewpoints to price the likelihood of events by buying and selling "Yes" or "No" contracts. The trading price reflects the market's assessment of an event's chance of occurring.
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Get to know Polymarket and Kalshi, businesses that "sell probabilities"—prediction markets that turn news into money.Especially during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Kalshi allowed trading on expected election outcomes between Donald
Trumpand Kamala Harris. Since then, Kalshi's valuation soared from $5 billion to $10 billion within months. Forbes reported the company's value increased fivefold in just six months.This surge made the two co-founders, each holding roughly 12% of the company, instantly worth over $1.3 billion by late 2025. Both had been included in Forbes' 30 Under 30 since 2020.
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