Founded in 2018 and co-founded by 29-year-old Brazilian Luana Lopez Lara, Kalshi’s startup operates as a stock exchange, where users negotiate contracts that predict future events. Initially, the startup was mainly involved in betting on sports tournaments, such as American football and NBA basketball tournaments, but it soon began predicting election results.
In these contracts, it is worth betting on everything, from the next head of the Federal Reserve (the Federal Reserve, the US central bank) to which country will win the 2016 World Cup and the results of next year’s Brazilian presidential election.
In the case of the Fed, bets show Kevin Hassett leading with 84%, while Kevin Warsh has 11%. Spain is the favorite country for the FIFA World Cup with 17%, followed by France (15%), England (13%) and Brazil (11%). In the Brazilian elections there is a tie: President Lula and Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio Freitas each received 43%.
The name comes from the Arabic word “Kalshi” which means everything. Arabic is the mother tongue of one of the founders, Tarek Mansour, CEO, who grew up in Lebanon.
The other founder is Brazilian Lara, who became the youngest billionaire to build her own fortune when Calci reached US$11 billion, with a US$1 billion investment round. Lara was born in Joinville (SC) and graduated in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Contract prices range from 0 to 1 USD – the amount that whoever wins the bet gets. The bet amount varies according to the probability of the prediction being confirmed – the more difficult it is, the lower the bet amount and the greater the win.
Calci’s investors include venture capital managers Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Capital G, among other investors. Kalshi’s main competitor is the Polymarket platform, which also provides event and market forecasts.
Calci is the first broker regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the regulatory agency for futures and commodities.
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