Prediction markets are no longer a niche curiosity. They’re plastered across subway ads and World Cup broadcasts, and they’ve spawned platforms worth tens of billions of dollars. Now a New York-based startup called Pascal wants to elbow its way into the party with a $9 million Series A round led by Union Square Ventures.

Pascal’s pitch is straightforward: build a prediction market that feels less like a novelty betting site and more like a proper trading venue. The platform positions itself closer to perpetual futures than traditional event contracts, targeting serious traders and institutions rather than casual punters scrolling through political odds on their phones.

A crowded field with very large incumbents

Here’s the thing about entering the prediction market space in mid-2026: the two biggest players have already established enormous footholds. Polymarket sits at an approximate valuation of $15B, while Kalshi has reached roughly $22B.

The two incumbents also occupy distinct lanes. Kalshi operates as a CFTC-regulated platform focused on USD-denominated markets, giving it a compliance advantage with US-based institutional players. Polymarket runs on Polygon using USDC, covering a broader array of global events with a more crypto-native approach. Pascal appears to be threading a needle between the two, promising institutional-grade tools with competitive fee structures.

The $9M raise is notable partly because of who’s writing the check. Union Square Ventures has a long track record in both crypto and fintech, having been early backers of Coinbase, Twitter, and Tumblr.

What makes Pascal different

Pascal launched its private beta in June 2026, roughly a month before announcing this funding round. The platform emphasizes a few key differentiators over existing prediction market platforms.

First, the perpetual futures angle. Traditional prediction markets work like binary options: you buy a contract that pays out if an event happens and expires worthless if it doesn’t. Pascal’s approach borrows from the perpetual futures model that has become the dominant trading instrument in crypto markets. Perps, as they’re known in trading circles, don’t have expiration dates. They let traders maintain positions indefinitely while tracking the price of an underlying asset or outcome.

Second, Pascal says it’s building tools specifically for professional and institutional traders. That means advanced order types, better execution quality, and solutions to problems like phantom fills, which occur when a trade appears to execute but doesn’t actually get filled.

Third, the fee structure. Pascal is marketing itself as offering competitively low fees, though specific numbers haven’t been disclosed.

This isn’t Pascal’s first rodeo with fundraising either. Pascal Research, a linked entity focused on blockchain financial tools, raised $4M back in August 2025. That earlier round appears to have funded the initial research and development that led to the platform now entering beta.