The prediction market startup Kalshi has successfully raised $185 million in a Series C funding round, increasing the company's valuation to $2 billion and officially joining the "unicorn" club. This funding round was led by the cryptocurrency-focused venture capital firm Paradigm.
The importance of Kalshi and the prediction market trend
This funding will help #Kalshi develop its technology team and facilitate integration with brokers. Kalshi's "huge" valuation is the latest sign of strong demand for prediction markets. These markets have seen high trading volumes in events such as the U.S. presidential election (Polymarket reached over $3 billion) and Kalshi's event contracts reached a total volume of $875 million in November.
Web3 integration and expansion into Crypto
To meet the growing demand from traders, Kalshi has expanded its product offerings. Last fall, the platform received approval to operate event contracts related to U.S. congressional races and other political races, after years of legal disputes with the CFTC.
Notably, Kalshi has also launched a major Web3 integration with ZeroHash, a cryptocurrency and stablecoin infrastructure provider, to accept digital asset deposits. Currently, the platform accepts four types of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, $USDC , Worldcoin, and Solana. Kalshi's announcement of a new valuation comes as the crypto-native prediction market platform Polymarket is reported to have raised nearly $200 million at a valuation of over $1 billion.