Luana Lopes Lara, co-founder of prediction market and app Kalshi, is now reportedly “the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire.”
Forbes reported that the 29-year-old earned the title after Kalshi, co-founded by her MIT classmate, 29-year-old Tarek Mansour, raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation.
Kalshi is an exchange where users can place bets on the outcome of events like elections, sports games, and cultural occasions like the Oscars.
However, to legally operate, the prediction market firm needed federal approval. It wasn't until November 2020 that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission finally gave Kalshi the green light.
With Kalshi’s new valuation, Lopes Lara has dethroned 31-year-old Scale AI cofounder Lucy Guo. Before, Guo, 35-year-old Taylor Swift held the title. Now, Lopes Lara and Mansour each own around 12 percent of their company, which amounts to $1.3 billion each.
In March 2019, Forbes dubbed Kylie Jenner “the youngest self-made billionaire ever.” However, in June 2020, the magazine rescinded the title after apparently discovering that Jenner had inflated her wealth, revealing that her net worth was likely just under $900 million.
“It's clear that Kylie's camp has been lying,” Forbes wrote at the time.
