Kalshi is in talks to raise money at a $65 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Nov. 12).
That’s 62.5% above the $40 billion valuation Kalshi secured in late October, when it announced a $1 billion round that had been expected to be its last before an initial public offering.
Kalshi decided to seek more private capital ahead of the anticipated IPO, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the discussions. That person said market volatility didn’t drive the decision. A Kalshi spokesperson declined to comment to Bloomberg.
The October round, covered by PYMNTS, was co-led by Wellington and Sequoia. Sequoia had also participated in the Coatue-led $1 billion round in May, which valued Kalshi at $22 billion. That was double the $11 billion valuation set five months earlier, when Kalshi raised another $1 billion.
“We’ll accelerate our prediction market growth, grow institutional adoption, launch new products like indices, single-stock perpetual futures, and compute markets,” Kalshi said in its October funding announcement. The company also said it would invest in reaching more institutional customers, including hedge funds and financial institutions, and focus its international expansion on Latin America and Europe.
Kalshi’s monthly trading volume by contract value more than doubled from $40 billion in August to nearly $100 billion in October, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of Kalshi data. Sports betting dominated trading activity over the past year. Bloomberg reported that Kalshi’s annualized revenue recently topped $5 billion, citing a person familiar with the figure. Documents Bloomberg reviewed put gross margin at about 90% during the October round. In that round’s announcement, Kalshi separately said its annualized revenue from markets outside sports had exceeded $1 billion, as PYMNTS reported.
Kalshi’s IPO discussions date back at least to June, when PYMNTS reported that executives had held informal talks with investment banks, citing The Information. The company was also encouraging banks to connect to its platform so their institutional clients could trade there. The October round and the latest talks would put two more private financings between those early IPO discussions and a public listing if the new round closes.
