Luana Lopes Lara, 29, became the world's youngest self-made female billionaire after Kalshi, the prediction platform she founded alongside Tarek Mansour, soared to a valuation of $11 billion. Behind the impressive figures stands an extraordinary personal trajectory that began on the stages of Bolshoi in Rio and ended at the pinnacle of America's fintech industry.
Lopes Lara grew up in Brazil and was accepted to the Bolshoi Theater School there, where she studied under an intense training regimen of up to 13 hours per day. According to reports, the atmosphere was exceptionally competitive, with sabotage attempts between dancers. After completing her studies in 2013, she danced for 9 months in Austria but chose to abandon her professional career and move to MIT, where she began a new path.
At MIT, Lopes Lara met Mansour, who became her partner. During the summer, she worked as an intern with Ray Dalio at Bridgewater, with Ken Griffin at Citadel Securities, and later at Five Rings Capital in New York – the place where, during a nighttime walk from work to the interns' apartments, the idea for the prediction platform was born.
In 2019, they presented the idea to Y Combinator, and in 2020, Kalshi became the first prediction platform to receive federal approval from the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). Just before the US presidential election in 2024, the company won a legal battle that allowed it to offer legal contracts on election outcomes for the first time – a precedent-setting move in the field.
Lopes Lara confirmed her attendance after Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli invited her through a mutual acquaintance, her pastor, Rob McCoy. The Annual International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, which gathers many of Israel's most passionate supporters from around the world, was set to include her this year, as she frequently fought for Israel's reputation on campuses and in media interviews.
In the election itself, Kalshi users bet more than $500 million and, according to reports, successfully predicted President Donald Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Mansour explained in one of the interviews she gave, "This is actually the best mechanism to know who's really going to win. We let the market speak instead of commentators, pollsters, or interested parties."
Growing fast, overtaking competitors, and reaching CNN's screen
Today, Kalshi presents itself as "the world's largest prediction markets company." The company's valuation is $11 billion. Lopes Lara and Mansour each hold approximately 12%, equivalent to about $1.3 billion.
Alongside business expansion, CNN recently signed an agreement that will bring real-time prediction data from Kalshi markets to the network's television, digital, and streaming broadcasts. According to publications, CNN will display a live ticker of market forecasts and allow reporters to use them during political, cultural coverage, and even weather forecasts. In doing so, Lopes Lara displaced pop star Taylor Swift, who held the title of the world's youngest self-made female billionaire.
