Kalshi Nears $40 Billion Valuation in $1 Billion Raise as Bitcoin (BTC) Markets Take Note

Kalshi's $1 Billion Raise

Event-contracts exchange Kalshi is in advanced negotiations to raise roughly $1 billion at a valuation approaching $40 billion, a deal that would add about $18 billion to the worth the platform carried in May — an increase of around 82% in five months. The names circulating around the round include Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group among prospective investors, while Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management are in discussions to lead the raise. The round is expected to close within weeks, and its final terms will reveal how backers ultimately choose to price the business: as a regulated exchange or as a fast-growing wagering platform. What is clear from the structure of the talks is that investors are not simply buying a sports-odds marketplace. Kalshi has set its ambition on becoming a multi-asset trading venue, a positioning that would put it in direct competition with derivatives heavyweight CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Liquidity on such venues is supplied by market makers quoting continuous two-sided prices, and scaling that infrastructure from event contracts into a broader product suite is precisely the exchange-grade expansion the valuation appears to anticipate.

An 11x Revenue Multiple

The valuation math is aggressive. Private-markets research firm Sacra estimates Kalshi reached $3.5 billion in annualized revenue as of June, up from $735 million in 2025 — and at a $40 billion price tag, that works out to a multiple of roughly 11 times revenue. Kalshi's own May disclosure was far more conservative, putting annualized revenue above $1.5 billion. The comparison set is unforgiving: Sacra calculates that sportsbook operator DraftKings trades at about 2.1 times revenue, and sports contracts account for roughly 80% of Kalshi's volume. Matching the DraftKings multiple at a $40 billion valuation would require about $19 billion in annual revenue — more than five times the June estimate. Investors, in other words, appear to be underwriting a different business: a multi-asset platform spanning spot trading across asset classes, not a betting shop. Competition is intensifying on parallel tracks. Polymarket, which settles contracts on blockchain rails where each trade is verified by a node network, is separately seeking $1 billion, and Robinhood now routes some of its busiest World Cup contracts to its own exchange. Even so, Kalshi has taken market share from Polymarket over the past year, according to Dune Analytics data. Regulatory scrutiny is building alongside the capital: US Senator Adam Schiff and other lawmakers have raised investor-protection concerns about prediction markets, the House Oversight Committee has run an insider-trading probe since May with Kalshi among its first targets, and the company faces wash-trading claims it disputes while holding early talks on an IPO in the coming years. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

Prediction Markets Enter the Big Leagues

Our reading is that the same institutional capital now circling event contracts is the money that previously chased speculative crypto cycles — from memecoin manias to leverage-fueled rallies in Bitcoin (BTC) — and it is migrating toward venues where outcomes are priced as tradeable financial instruments. Two concurrent $1 billion raises, at Kalshi and Polymarket, mark prediction markets' arrival in mainstream finance. The multiple Sacra documents will hold only if regulation resolves the question the final terms of this round will signal: whether Kalshi is priced as an exchange or a sportsbook.