Luana Lopes Lara

About Me

The world's youngest self-made woman billionaire, Luana Lopes Lara is the cofounder and COO of prediction market platform Kalshi. Kalshi allows users to bet on everything from sports game results to political elections to entertainment awards and more. It reached a $11 billion valuation in December 2025 following a $1 billion funding round. Kalshi received federal approval in 2020 to operate in the U.S., and made history in 2024 after receiving federal approval to allow users to bet on the presidential election, marking the first legal election contracts in the U.S. in over a century. Lopes Lara performed as a professional ballerina for nine months after graduating high school at Salzburger Landestheater in Austria for a season of "Swan Lake." An MIT graduate and previous quantitative trader at Citadel Securities, Lopes Lara secured funding from angel investors including Charles Schwab and Henry Kravis, as well as firms Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, CapitalG and Paradigm. Lopes Lara owns an estimated 12% stake in Kalshi.