Kalshi co-founder credits flat structure for scaling without the bureaucracy

Most startups that hire aggressively end up with more meetings, not more momentum. Kalshi says it has dodged that trap.

Speaking at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit in Santa Barbara, California, Kalshi co-founder and COO Luana Lopes Lara said the prediction market has scaled its workforce by avoiding formal hierarchies altogether. The timing matters. One analyst says the company could soon be worth as much as $42 billion, which makes its management choices a lot more interesting than the average org chart.

No middle managers, no problem (so far)

Lara’s diagnosis of growing companies is blunt. As headcount climbs, she argued, the real enemy is the pileup of new meetings, approval requests and red tape that comes with it.

Kalshi’s employee count grew from roughly 35-40 people to 150-170 in approximately one year.

Of its 170 employees, approximately 130 report directly to Lara and fellow co-founder Tarek Mansour.

The growth that makes the org chart matter

The CFTC-regulated platform, established in 2018, saw its valuation climb from $5 billion in late 2025 to an estimated $22 billion by mid-2026. That is more than a fourfold jump in a short window.

The company is also reportedly in discussions for a funding round that could lift its valuation to around $40 billion. Analyst projections stretch as high as $42.1 billion.

Sports contracts account for approximately 65-75% of the platform’s volume, which runs into the billions on a weekly basis.

Kalshi has also added perpetual futures to its lineup. The company has also leaned on AI tools to drive operational efficiencies.

How Kalshi got here

Kalshi’s current scale traces back to a legal fight. In 2024, the company won a key case against the CFTC, its own regulator.

That victory expanded the range of event contracts it could list, opening the door to topics like politics and entertainment.

Kalshi has also ventured into tokenized event contracts on the Solana blockchain. Its core model remains built around regulatory compliance and traditional market infrastructure, with Solana serving as an extension rather than the foundation.

What this means for prediction markets and the people betting on them

Kalshi’s CFTC oversight and its 2024 court win give it a compliance story that institutional money tends to like.

With sports making up roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of volume, Kalshi’s growth is heavily tied to one category. That brings it closer to territory long associated with sportsbooks, which could invite scrutiny and competition from a different set of players.

Tokenized event contracts blend a regulated product with on-chain distribution. Kalshi’s priorities remain firmly on the compliance side.