29-year-old Kalshi cofounder Luana Lopes Lara becomes the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire after startup hits $11B valuation. Photos: X.
Luana Lopes Lara has become the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire at 29. According to Forbes, the Kalshi cofounder has surpassed Scale AI’s Lucy Guo, who herself recently overtook Taylor Swift. Lara’s rapid rise comes on the heels of her startup’s extraordinary valuation jump.
Kalshi, the prediction-market platform she built with fellow MIT graduate Tarek Mansour, recently raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation. The round, led by crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm, also included Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Y Combinator.
Launched just six years ago, Kalshi allows users to bet on the outcomes of future events, from elections and economic trends to sports and pop culture. The platform’s value surged from $2 billion in June to $5 billion in October, before more than doubling again in the latest fundraising round.
“We literally are creating an entire new asset class, a completely new financial product,” Mansour previously told Forbes. “We’ve legalized it and created the framework and the industry for it.”
Kalshi’s approval from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) was pivotal. However, nearly 65 attorneys rejected the idea, and the company spent almost three years resolving regulatory concerns. The platform finally launched after receiving approval in late 2020.
By August 2021, Kalshi had already attracted over 4,000 users and hit $10 million in trading volume by December the same year. The early regulatory groundwork and persistence helped secure seed funding from major investors, including Charles Schwab.
Before becoming a billionaire fintech entrepreneur, Lara’s life followed an unconventional path.
Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, she studied at the renowned Bolshoi Theatre School in Brazil. Admission is highly competitive, with nearly 97 applicants vying for each spot. The training demands eight hours of intensive dance every weekday for eight years.
Lara briefly worked as a professional ballerina in Austria before shifting her focus to academics. She later enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying Computer Science and Mathematics. While at MIT, she conducted research in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and spent summers working with Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates and Ken Griffin’s Citadel.
Her early professional journey also included roles at Citadel Securities and Five Rings Capital, experiences that helped shape her interest in trading and financial markets.
Both Lara and Mansour, who each own an estimated 12% stake in the company, are now valued at $1.3 billion apiece.
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
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