On the opening night of the Web Summit 2026, held in Rio de Janeiro until Thursday (11), Kalshi’s co-founder, Luana Lopes Lara, spoke about the company’s accelerated trajectory, currently valued at US$22 billion. In one of the opening panels, the entrepreneur highlighted the influence of her Brazilian roots and the intensive use of artificial intelligence as pillars of the prediction markets platform’s success. Before the opening of the event, however, Luana gave an exclusive interview to the InfoMoney. The content will be published on our YouTube channel in the coming days.
Born and raised in Brazil, Luana attributes an important part of Kalshi’s resilience to the Brazilian’s optimistic spirit. “One of the most overlooked qualities of Brazilians and Brazilian culture is pure optimism and the belief that things will work out in the end,” he said. According to her, this mindset was crucial in the company’s early years, which went “three to four years without having a single active product” while negotiating with US regulators to launch a legal prediction market.
The company recently raised $1 billion in an investment round, doubling its valuation in just a few months. According to Luana, Bank of America classifies Kalshi as the fastest growing company in the United States outside the artificial intelligence sector. To sustain this progress, the company plans to expand its operations in both the American retail and institutional segments, with a focus on banks and hedge funds.
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One of the factors behind Kalshi’s agility, even with a relatively lean team of 170 employees, is the deep integration of artificial intelligence into operations. “We were very lucky to grow the company now in the world of AI. Each engineer has about twenty cloud agents doing a lot of work, and we are able to be much more efficient!, she said. According to her, this model helps maintain a more horizontal organizational structure and speeds up decision making, giving the company an advantage in execution.
Challenges
Despite its success in the United States, Kalshi faces regulatory challenges in other markets, such as Brazil, where a recent decision by the Ministry of Finance limited the performance of prediction markets. Luana stated that she sees this scenario as an opportunity for clarification. “What we need to do is take a step back and think about how to educate these many countries to explain what we do,” he said, highlighting the importance of differentiating the betting and casino prediction markets.
With an ambitious vision, the executive reiterated her belief that prediction markets can surpass the stock market in size. “It’s just a matter of time. We’re only in the US yet, but the sky is the limit for this asset class,” he said, projecting a horizon of five to ten years for this transformation.
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