Kalshi: The Everything Exchange

Today’s world is noisy. It’s difficult to parse out anyone’s true opinions, and sometimes even the truth, as the internet increasingly favors provocative statements over substance. Actions, more so than ever, mean more than words.

In economics, this idea is known as revealed preferences: people reveal what they value/believe based on their actions rather than their words.

Markets are the truest form of revealed preferences.

That’s what makes Kalshi so powerful. It transforms opinions into tradable outcomes, creating markets that quantify what people truly think will happen.

Today, we’re announcing our partnership with Kalshi as Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara build the world’s leading prediction market: a platform where anyone can put their money behind what they believe. From Federal Reserve decisions to Monday Night Football outcomes to Grammy nominations.

Enabling a new consumer behavior

Prediction markets have long existed in theory, but Kalshi is the first to make them accessible, regulated, and scalable. Believing that enduring companies can only be built on rock-solid foundations, Tarek and Luana have played the long game from the beginning, pursuing full regulatory approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to create the first government-licensed exchange for event trading. It was a years-long process that many thought impossible, but their conviction never wavered.

The decision to prioritize compliance and trust over speed set the foundation for everything that followed. We’ve seen this movie before: when Coinbase chose regulation early, it built enduring credibility with consumers and institutions alike. Kalshi’s approach echoes that discipline.

Their journey hasn’t been easy. Through lawsuits and building institutional level infrastructure from scratch, the team has navigated a labyrinth few would attempt. Momentum began with the 2024 elections, when Kalshi proved consumer appetite for event-based markets. Since then, they’ve launched markets across culture, sports, economics, and beyond. Today, Kalshi has become a cultural phenomenon as trading volume exceeds even its election peaks, an outcome few predicted.

A new asset class is born

While Kalshi’s consumer traction is explosive, institutional activity is also growing rapidly - institutions already drive one-third of the volume. Prediction markets are transitioning from a consumer phenomenon to a true financial asset class.

Kalshi creates a way for institutions to hedge risks they previously could not, or had to rely on investment banks to approximate with opaque, imperfect instruments. Insurance companies can hedge the impact of a hurricane in a specific region, agriculture companies can hedge rainfall or seasonal weather swings, and utility providers can hedge the timing of carbon policy changes.

The opportunity also extends to consumers. In states like Florida and California, where homeowners' insurance is increasingly scarce or unaffordable, contracts that pay out when specific events occur can help individuals hedge against wildfire, flood, and other climate risks.

We’re extremely excited about this new asset class that Kalshi is pioneering.

Why we invested

At IVP, we partner with category creators; teams that don’t just compete in existing industries but invent entirely new ones. We’ve seen this pattern before: Perplexity with the first answer engine, Snap with ephemeral content, Twitter with micro-blogging. These platforms also tend to redefine what constitutes best-in-class growth. Kalshi fits that lineage in both ways, scaling to over $50Bn in annualized volume up nearly 1000% year over year.

Tarek and Luana’s vision that “everything is an asset class” has evolved from an academic idea into a regulated exchange that’s redefining how information becomes value. Their combination of intellectual rigor, regulatory persistence, and operational excellence makes them uniquely equipped to lead this new financial frontier.

We’re excited to join them on this journey toward a world where anyone can invest in what they believe in.