Who is Luana Lopes Lara, Kalshi CEO who turned Kylie Jenner gossip into a $22 billion prediction marketplace
When prediction markets were little more than an idea on Wall Street, Kalshi Inc. co-founder Luana Lopes Lara found inspiration in an unlikely place: the
When prediction markets were little more than an idea on Wall Street, Kalshi Inc. co-founder Luana Lopes Lara found inspiration in an unlikely place: the womb of Kylie Jenner. It was early 2018 and the internet was abuzz with speculation as to whether Jenner, the reality TV star-turned-cosmetics-founder, was with child. Lopes Lara was interning at Five Rings, a New York trading firm, learning the art of making markets. She asked her peers what they thought of the hype — sensing an opportunity to create a novel wager — but none of the other interns had even heard of Jenner. “I was the only person that was like, ‘Oh my god, I think she’s pregnant. Look at these things on Instagram,’” Lopes Lara said in an interview from Kalshi’s airy, white-walled Manhattan office. “I was like, ‘I want to make a bet with you on this.’” (It turned out Jenner was, in fact, pregnant, which was kept hidden until after her daughter’s birth.) The moment stuck with Lopes Lara — not the gossip, but the idea that millions of people might be forming strong opinions on uncertain outcomes, with nowhere to put their conviction. It helped forge her career path, leading Lopes Lara to start Kalshi with her college classmate, Tarek Mansour, later that year. At 30, she is now one of the world’s youngest female self-made billionaires, with a net worth of $2.6 billion. She is driven by a vision that we should, essentially, be able to bet on anything. Kalshi's rapid growth As Kalshi’s chief operating officer, much of the business is Lopes Lara’s responsibility. She oversees engineering, market listings andliquidity partners, among other areas, while also interviewing most new hires. It may sound like standard fare for the COO of a startup, but Kalshi has grown at a tremendous pace in the past year as prediction markets gained popularity. It has also faced serious political and regulatory backlash along the way. Kalshi was valued at $22 billion in its latest funding round, double what investors pegged the company at in December. It employs 150 people, up from just 35 staffers a year ago. As fast as Kalshi has grown, its controversies have piled up. Nearly all of them stem from a feeling among a not-insignificant faction of lawmakers, customers and conscientious observers that Kalshi and its chief rival, Polymarket, are doing something wrong. Also Read | Polymarket, Kalshi Face Spanish Ban Some critics say allowing bets on certain events — like international trade deals, who will run for officeor even Super Bowl attendees — opens up too many opportunities for insiders to benefit. Others point to ethical issues of trading on topics such as war or death, neither of which are explicitly allowed on Kalshi. In February, as war broke out in Iran, a Kalshi market tracking the odds of Ali Khamenei being ousted as the country’s Supreme Leader began to jump. He had been killed in the bombing, but instead of resolving the market to “Yes,” Kalshi froze it. His death technically made the contract invalid.
The BriefWire