Kalshi is in talks to raise fresh capital at a $40Bn valuation, according to a Financial Times report, nearly double the $22Bn price tag attached to its Series F round just weeks earlier in May 2026.
That $40Bn figure is nearly triple the $15Bn that rival Polymarket is reportedly targeting. The central tension this story forces onto the table is that a valuation that has moved roughly 20x in twelve months deserves more scrutiny than a funding press release typically gets.
The ongoing regulatory scrutiny of prediction markets is dominating the discussion around the Kalshi IPO, and until the situation is resolved, it is unlikely to become a publicly traded company.
What Kalshi Actually Is and Why the Structure Matters
Kalshi is not a crypto exchange or a sportsbook. It is a federally regulated event-contracts exchange, operating under the oversight of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Think of it as a stock exchange, except instead of shares in Apple, users trade binary contracts on the probability of real-world outcomes: whether the Federal Reserve raises rates, which party wins a Senate seat, or who advances in a tournament bracket.
That CFTC license is the structural asset that separates Kalshi from Polymarket, which runs on blockchain infrastructure, settles positions in cryptocurrency, and operates without US regulatory approval.
Polymarket is faster and more internationally accessible, but it cannot credibly pitch itself to institutional allocators who require regulated counterparties. That credibility gap is the direct cause of the $25Bn spread between the two companies’ current fundraising targets.
Co-founders Tarek Mansour, a former trader at Citadel Securities, and Luana Lopes Lara, a quantitative finance specialist and MIT classmate, launched Kalshi in 2018 and built the company around precisely this regulatory positioning.
On June 24, Mansour confirmed on CNBC that Kalshi is evaluating a potential IPO, though he said a public listing is unlikely before 2027. IPO speculation around Kalshi has been circulating since earlier this year, but this was the first on-record confirmation from the CEO.
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The Growth Numbers and the World Cup Catalyst
Monthly trading volume on Kalshi’s platform recently surpassed $17Bn, up from roughly $5Bn a year earlier, a more-than-threefold increase in twelve months.
Bernstein Research puts Kalshi’s May 2026 monthly volume at $17.9Bn, versus Polymarket’s $7.1Bn, giving Kalshi a 57% market share versus Polymarket’s 22.7%. On an annualized basis, Kalshi’s trading volume reached approximately $178Bn by April 2026.
