Luana Lopes Lara, a 29-year-old entrepreneur from Brazil, has etched her name in history as the youngest self-made woman billionaire in the world.
Kalshi, her prediction market platform, has recently soared to an impressive $11 billion valuation, elevating her to billionaire status. Lara’s swift ascent outpaces Scale AI’s Lucy Guo, who had just recently surpassed Taylor Swift’s ranking, according to Forbes.
Childhood, Dance, and Academic Pursuits
Hailing from Brazil, Lopes Lara honed her skills as a professional ballerina at the renowned Bolshoi Theatre School, an experience she found to be even more intense than her time at MIT. After high school, she took her talent to Austria, where she performed professionally for a time.
Drawing inspiration from her mother, a dedicated math teacher, and her father, an accomplished electrical engineer, she thrived in her studies, earning multiple gold and bronze medals in national and regional science and math Olympiads across Brazil.
She relocated to the United States to advance her education, obtaining degrees in computer science and mathematics from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While at MIT, she completed internships at leading financial firms such as Bridgewater Associates, Citadel, and Five Rings Capital, where she honed her skills in quantitative trading.
Establishing Kalshi and Achieving Billionaire Status
In 2018, during their internships in New York City, Lopes Lara and her cofounder, Tarek Mansour—both MIT graduates—brought the idea for Kalshi to life. A market opportunity emerged for a platform enabling individuals to trade directly based on the outcomes of real-world events.
Lara shared with Forbes, “We observed that the majority of trading occurs when individuals hold a perspective on the future and seek to translate that into market actions.”
The duo sought federal approval to function as a designated contract market, navigating substantial regulatory hurdles and engaging in legal disputes with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In September 2024, they achieved a significant victory in a crucial lawsuit, paving the way for regulated election trading in the US.
Kalshi’s value has skyrocketed, jumping from a $2 billion valuation in June to an impressive $11 billion by December 2025, fueled by a $1 billion funding round. This funding round catapulted both cofounders into the elite billionaire club. Lopes Lara possesses an estimated 12% stake in Kalshi, translating to a personal net worth of around $1.3 billion.
