Who is Luana Lopes Lara? Meet the 29-year-old self-made woman billionaire

The Kalshi cofounder's $11 bn leap shows how discipline and tech ambition shaped her meteoric rise.

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At just 29, Brazilian entrepreneur Luana Lopes Lara has become the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire, according to Forbes. Lara achieved this milestone through Kalshi, a fintech platform that allows users to trade on real-world events, from elections to economic reports. A recent $1 billion funding round valued Kalshi at $11 billion, propelling both Lara and cofounder Tarek Mansour, who each hold roughly 12 per cent of the company, into the billionaire club.

 

Her journey

 

According to Forbes, Lara’s early life was defined by rigorous ballet training at Brazil’s Bolshoi Theater School, where she endured up to 10 hours of daily practice. She briefly pursued a professional dance career in Austria before shifting focus to academics. Inspired by her engineer father and maths teacher mother, Lara excelled in science competitions, winning gold at the Brazilian Astronomy Olympiad and bronze at the Santa Catarina Mathematics Olympiad.

 

She later earned degrees in computer science and mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including a master’s in engineering with research in cognitive science. Internships at Bridgewater Associates and Citadel Securities gave her exposure to quantitative finance, laying the groundwork for her entrepreneurial journey.

 

What is Kalshi?

 

In 2018, Lara and Mansour founded Kalshi with a vision to transform the way people engage with risk. The platform lets users trade on outcomes of future events. Kalshi is a Y Combinator alum and the first fully regulated event-contract exchange approved by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to Forbes.

   

Funding and expansion

 

According to Forbes, Kalshi’s valuation has quintupled in less than six months, thanks to support from investors such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Paradigm. The recent capital infusion will be used to expand integrations with brokerages, build new partnerships with media outlets, and enhance the platform’s reach into crypto markets.