Kalshi Concludes Successful Funding Amid Global Growth
Kalshi has completed a Series D funding round valued at over $300 million, giving the prediction market platform a valuation of $5 billion. Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led the funding, with Paradigm repeating as a participant, alongside new investors.
Concluded in August, the funding reflects investor confidence in Kalshi's accelerated global growth and its expanding role in the financial infrastructure. The firm also announced the launch of its global operations, making its prediction markets available in over 140 countries and forming what it calls the first unified international prediction platform.
Among the companies also participating in the funding round were CapitalG, Coinbase Ventures, General Catalyst, and Spark Capital. a16z Growth Fund partner Alex Immerman said the company is positioned to become a major force in global financial markets.
Trading volumes on Kalshi also jumped sharply, with combined platform volumes surpassing $1 billion in September and yearly volumes exceeding $50 billion. Market share globally increased from 2% the previous year to over 60% of prediction market volumes in 2025.
Kalshi co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara have taken a regulatory-first strategy, obtaining Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approval to achieve long-term stability. Analysts pointed to Week 6 NFL pricing margins of Kalshi with those of big sportsbooks that include DraftKings and FanDuel, showing a merging between traditional betting models and prediction market models.
ICE Invests in Polymarket
Kalshi isn’t the only prediction market that has received an updated valuation in recent weeks. The New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) announced plans to invest up to $2 billion in the cryptocurrency-based betting marketplace Polymarket.
The investment, which values Polymarket at approximately $8 billion, will enable ICE to become a global distributor of the platform's event-driven data.
ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher stated that the move expands collaboration between traditional exchanges and blockchain-based markets. At the same time, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan noted that it enhances how users apply probability data in forecasting.
Polymarket gained significant attention during the 2024 US presidential election, attracting billions in bets. The firm has since endeavored to re-establish a US presence that is regulated as it acquired derivatives platform QCX to facilitate operating under the watchful eyes of the feds.
The acquisition followed the resolution of a federal probe into its 2022 settlement with the CFTC.
Bloomberg Intelligence analysts also described ICE's investment as a high-cost but strategic entry into blockchain prediction markets, which continue to draw institutional interest.
ICE shares rose 1.4% in New York after the announcement. Competing firms, such as Kalshi and Crypto.com, are also expanding into sports-focused prediction products as financial institutions increasingly utilize event-based data to gauge market sentiment.
