Kalshi has reportedly raised more than $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation in a round led by led by Coatue Management as record trading volumes, institutional demand, and sports markets fuel rapid growth.
Kalshi’s valuation has surged from $2 billion to $22 billion in just nine months, highlighting how quickly valuations in the prediction market industry are rising as trading activity accelerates.
The company has raised more than $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation, according to a March 19 report from The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reported the same details shortly after, confirming the valuation and funding size with a person with knowledge of the situation.
The latest funding comes as Kalshi continues to post record trading volumes. The platform recently logged a roughly $2.9 billion week, its highest weekly volume ever, as NCAA Tournament trading began to ramp up.
Sports markets have been a key driver of that growth. Prediction markets cumulatively handled roughly $1.63 billion in Super Bowl-related volume earlier this year, with Kalshi setting a new single-day record on Super Bowl Sunday, when trading exceeded $1 billion.
Momentum has continued into March Madness, which is already shaping up to be another blockbuster event for the platform. Duke’s March 19 hard-fought, first-round matchup against Siena alone generated more than $42 million in trading volume, while multiple other opening-day games cleared eight-figure totals.
Inside Kalshi’s latest funding round
According to the reports, Kalshi’s latest funding round is being led by Coatue Management, a major investment firm that invests across both private and public markets and is known for backing companies at scale. Coatue typically leads large late-stage financings in companies with significant revenue and clear paths to market dominance, rather than early-stage investments. Its portfolio includes firms like OpenAI, Stripe, SpaceX, and ByteDance, reflecting a focus on companies that can become dominant players in large markets.
Kalshi’s inclusion in that group comes as the company’s business continues to expand beyond retail trading. The WSJ reported that its customer base includes consumers, institutional market makers, and businesses using the platform to hedge exposure to real-world outcomes, with growth on the institutional side helping drive investor interest in the latest round.
Bloomberg separately reported that Kalshi’s annualized revenue has reached approximately $1.5 billion, suggesting the platform has already reached a level of scale that aligns with Coatue’s typical investment profile.
A timeline of Kalshi’s rapid valuation growth
Kalshi’s climb to a $22 billion valuation has been driven by a rapid series of funding rounds over the past nine months.
In June 2025, the company said it raised $185 million in a Series C round at a $2 billion valuation, led by Paradigm, with participation from the likes of Sequoia, Multicoin, and Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao.
The next major step came in October of last year, when Kalshi raised more than $300 million at a $5 billion valuation in a Series D round led by Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, with additional participation from Coinbase, Spark Capital, and others, including celebrity investors Kevin Hart and Kevin Durant.
In December, Kalshi announced a $1 billion Series E round at an $11 billion valuation. The company said that round was led by Paradigm, with participation from returning investors Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, among others.
The latest $22 billion valuation marks another doubling in just a few months. In total, the company’s valuation has climbed from $2 billion in June 2025 to $22 billion in March 2026, an 11x jump in approximately nine months.
How Kalshi’s valuation compares to competitors
Kalshi’s $22 billion valuation puts it ahead of its closest competitor, Polymarket, but both companies have seen valuations rise sharply in the past year.
Polymarket was last officially valued at about $8 billion following a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange in October 2025. Since then, the company has reportedly explored new fundraising at significantly higher levels. Bloomberg reported discussions in the $12 billion to $15 billion range, while more recent reporting suggests a valuation at around $20 billion, bringing it closer to Kalshi’s latest level.
While the companies operate under different models and valuation frameworks, Kalshi’s $22 billion private-market valuation now exceeds DraftKings’ public market value of roughly $12-13 billion and is in line with Flutter Entertainment, the parent company of FanDuel, which has a market value of approximately $18-22 billion based on its share price.
The comparison reflects increasing overlap between the markets. Prediction platforms like Kalshi are providing a more widely-available sports betting alternative, while traditional sportsbooks are beginning to develop their own prediction market products, like DraftKings Predictions and FanDuel Predicts, putting the companies on a more direct competitive path.
Can Kalshi maintain its lead?
Kalshi’s latest funding round and valuation reinforce a position the company has been building for some time. It has already established itself as the leading U.S. prediction market platform, and recent growth has only widened that lead.
The next phase will depend less on headline events and more on whether that growth can be sustained. Much of the recent surge has been driven by sports trading, which provide frequent, high-volume markets. Maintaining momentum may require even deeper institutional participation and continued expansion into other categories that can support more consistent trading beyond major events.
Kalshi’s early lead gives it an advantage, but the question now is whether it can extend that position as the market evolves, or whether growing competition and shifting user behavior begin to narrow the gap.
Mike Breen
Mike Breen has been a professional writer and editor covering a wide range of topics for more than 30 years. He’s been a freelance gaming industry writer since 2020, reporting on sports betting, online casinos, and more for various Catena Media sites, and he began reporting on prediction market industry news in 2025 for Prediction News. Prior to that, Mike was a founding editor at his hometown altweekly newspaper in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he extensively covered local arts, music and news.Mike’s published writing has received recognition and several awards from organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists and the Association of Alternative Newsmedia.When Mike is not working, he enjoys playing and listening to music, attending comedy shows, watching movies, and spending time with his family and three cats.
