Kalshi raises $1B at $40B valuation as it expands into crypto and stock perpetual futures

Kalshi trades as a CFTC-regulated designated contract market, a status that followed its 2024 legal win letting it list election and sports contracts under federal commodities law rather than state gambling statutes. That structure let it undercut offshore rivals like Polymarket, which still runs on crypto rails outside US oversight. The company's prior round valued it at $22 billion, a figure now surpassed by 82% with the new $1 billion raise.

The fresh capital funds single-stock perpetual futures, leveraged versions of existing event contracts, and a new market for pricing compute, pushing Kalshi well past its sports and politics roots. Retail traders gain access to leveraged stock exposure without a traditional margin brokerage account, while incumbent derivatives venues and brokers face a new competitor operating under lighter-touch commodities rules. Partnerships with the NBA and S&P Dow Jones Indices deepen even as sports contracts remain under legal fire in several states.

Stretching a CFTC license built for yes/no event contracts to cover leveraged single-stock bets tests how far 'prediction market' framing can travel before it looks like unregulated securities or gambling activity. Sports contracts already draw state-level disputes over whether Kalshi is really offering wagering dressed up as a federally sanctioned product. Sequoia and Wellington's backing signals institutional comfort with that bet, but the regulatory boundary it depends on has not been settled by courts or Congress.

The outstanding state lawsuits over Kalshi's sports contracts, still unresolved even as the NBA deal deepens, will determine whether its federal preemption argument holds beyond prediction markets into leveraged equity and compute products. With sports contracts contributing roughly 65% of recent revenue, any adverse ruling would hit the business model Kalshi is now trying to diversify away from. Watch how fast the single-stock perps and compute-pricing products actually launch once the funding closes.

The move was larger before the first headline than after. That is an observation, not an explanation: the market also moves on things nobody publishes.