Kalshi

Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara co-founded Kalshi in 2018. Mansour previously worked in financial services and studied at MIT, while Lopes Lara also brings a background in finance and operations. Both hold executive roles at the firm — Mansour as CEO and Lopes Lara as COO — and have been the primary public-facing representatives of the company throughout its CFTC licensing process.

Kalshi is a CFTC-designated Designated Contract Market, making it the only federally regulated exchange in the US where individuals can trade event contracts directly. That means it operates under the same regulator as the CME Group, rather than falling under SEC jurisdiction or operating offshore. Each contract is settled through Kalshi's clearinghouse, and the platform deals exclusively in US dollars — no cryptocurrency or offshore settlement mechanisms are involved.

Kalshi's contract categories span economics — including Federal Reserve interest-rate decisions, GDP growth figures, and inflation releases — as well as climate indicators, political outcomes, and cultural events such as Academy Award winners. Contracts are structured as binary all-or-nothing positions: a trader buys 'yes' on an outcome at a price between $0.01 and $0.99, and the contract settles at $1 if correct or $0 if not. All contracts are denominated and settled in fiat US dollars.

No. Kalshi's regulatory designation restricts participation to US-based individuals and entities. The exchange does not currently offer its event contracts to non-US residents, which distinguishes it from cryptocurrency-based prediction platforms that typically operate without geographic restrictions. Kalshi has not announced plans for international expansion as of mid-2025.

Yes. Following a federal court ruling in 2024 that overturned a CFTC order blocking election-related event contracts, Kalshi launched political-outcome trading. By February 2025, the exchange had expanded into sub-federal election markets, including contracts on the 2025 New York City mayoral primary. Previously, a CFTC order had prohibited the exchange from listing contracts on which party would control Congress.

Kalshi has raised venture capital from a group of investors including Sequoia Capital, Charles Schwab, and Henry Kravis. The Sequoia investment is notable because Kalshi represents the first exchange in Sequoia's portfolio and, by Kalshi's own account, the first exchange Sequoia backed prior to launch (per the firm, 2021). Specific funding rounds and valuations beyond the disclosed investor list are not publicly detailed by the company.

Kalshi generates revenue through a fee structure applied to trading activity on the exchange, though the specific fee schedule is not explicitly detailed in public communications. The exchange operates a central-limit order book where Kalshi acts as the clearing counterparty to all trades, earning fees from matched transactions rather than through market-making spreads. As a regulated exchange and clearinghouse, Kalshi's fee model is designed to fall within the standard practices for CFTC-supervised designated contract markets.