In a world where overnight success stories often feel scripted, Luana Lopes Lara’s journey reads like a plot twist only reality could deliver. At just 29 years old, the Brazilian-born entrepreneur has shattered records, becoming the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. Her secret? A prediction market platform called Kalshi, which just hit an eye-watering $11 billion valuation after raising $1 billion in funding. But rewind the tape, and you’ll find not Silicon Valley boardrooms, but the graceful spins of a ballerina on stage. How did a former dancer from the Bolshoi Ballet’s Brazilian outpost pirouette into the tech elite? Let’s trace her improbable path.
The Early Leaps: A Childhood in Rhythm and Relocation
Born in Brazil, Luana Lopes Lara grew up immersed in classical ballet, training at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy’s outpost in her home country. Dance wasn’t just a hobby; it was a rigorous education in perseverance, precision, and performance under pressure. “The studio taught me to embrace failure as a step toward mastery,” she later reflected in a 2022 interview. By her teens, she had performed on stages across South America, including a notable stint with the Salzburg Ballet in Austria, where she honed her craft amid Europe’s cultural whirlwind.
Yet, even as she en pointe’d her way through adolescence, Lara’s mind wandered beyond the footlights. Fascinated by the predictive power of markets—how traders bet on futures from commodities to elections—she began blending her artistic poise with analytical curiosity. At 18, she left the ballet world behind, trading tutus for textbooks, and headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study computer science. It was there, amid Cambridge’s ivy-covered labs, that her entrepreneurial spark ignited.
MIT Magic: Internships, Ideas, and the Kalshi Spark
Lara’s college summers were anything but ordinary. While many students flipped burgers or lifeguarded, she interned at the upper echelons of global finance. One standout gig? Working for legendary hedge fund manager Ray Dalio at Bridgewater Associates. “It was like stepping into a real-time economics simulator,” she told Fortune recently. Dalio’s principles-based approach to decision-making—treating uncertainty as an asset—left an indelible mark, fueling her belief that everyday people deserved tools to hedge against life’s unpredictabilities.
Enter Tarek Mansour, her MIT classmate and future co-founder. Over late-night study sessions and cafeteria debates, the duo zeroed in on a glaring gap: prediction markets. These platforms let users trade contracts on real-world events—everything from election outcomes to Oscar winners—harnessing collective wisdom for sharper forecasts. But in the U.S., they were stifled by outdated regulations, confined to shadowy corners or offshore havens.
In 2018, fresh out of MIT, Lara and Mansour founded Kalshi in a New York City apartment. Their vision? Democratize betting on the future, legally and transparently. “We saw that most trading happens when people have some view about the future, and then try to find a way to put that in the markets,” Lara explained. With seed funding from heavyweights like Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, and later Andreessen Horowitz, they bootstrapped a platform that felt more like a savvy app than a casino.
Regulatory Jumps: Suing for the Future
Launching Kalshi wasn’t a graceful arabesque; it was a high-stakes battle. For 18 grueling months, the founders lobbied the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for a federal license as a designated contract market. Competitors like Polymarket operated in regulatory gray zones, but Lara and Mansour demanded legitimacy. Their persistence paid off on November 3, 2020, when Kalshi became the first new prediction market approved in decades.
The real breakthrough came in 2024, ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Kalshi sued the CFTC to offer “event contracts” on political outcomes—a move that turbocharged user growth. “Election betting isn’t gambling; it’s information aggregation,” Lara argued in court filings. They won, and Kalshi’s volumes exploded, drawing millions in trades on everything from Fed rate hikes to Super Bowl champs. By mid-2025, the platform boasted over 1 million users, blending the thrill of sportsbooks with the smarts of stock exchanges.
The Billion-Dollar Leap: A Record-Breaking Valuation
Fast-forward to December 2025: Kalshi’s latest $1 billion funding round, led by crypto VC Paradigm, catapulted the company to an $11 billion valuation. With Lara and Mansour each holding about 12% stakes, their net worths soared to $1.3 billion apiece—edging out pop titan Taylor Swift and Scale AI’s Lucy Guo for the youngest self-made female billionaire crown. Forbes dubbed it a “millennial milestone,” noting how Lara’s ballet-honed resilience turned regulatory hurdles into rocket fuel.
Today, Kalshi isn’t just a betting app; it’s a forecasting oracle. Users wager on climate events, pop culture milestones, and economic shifts, with contracts settling in cash. The platform’s AI-driven insights have even caught the eye of policymakers, who use its data for better decision-making. As Lara told CoinDesk, “We’re turning events into assets—empowering people to own the future.”
Beyond the Spotlight: Challenges, Class Actions, and the Dance Continues
No rags-to-riches tale is without thorns. In November 2025, Kalshi faced a proposed class-action lawsuit in New York, alleging unlicensed sports betting and misleading users about the identities of contract counterparties. Lara fired back, calling the claims “baseless” and vowing to fight. It’s a reminder that even billionaires battle skeptics.
On X (formerly Twitter), where Lara boasts over 51,000 followers under @luanalopeslara, the buzz is electric. Recent posts hail her as “the ballerina billionaire,” with one viral thread ranking her alongside Zuckerberg and Gates as the youngest billionaires. French and Dutch media amplify her story, from Le Média Politique’s flash alerts to AD.nl’s profile on the “Brazilian ballerina who beat Kylie Jenner.”
The Grand Jeté Ahead: What’s Next for Lara?
At 29, Luana Lopes Lara is just warming up. With Kalshi eyeing international expansion and deeper AI integrations, she could redefine how we predict—and profit from—the world. Research even links her ballet background to entrepreneurial edge: studies show dancers excel in high-pressure innovation, turning “what if” into “watch this.”
From Brazil’s studios to New York’s skyline, Lara’s story isn’t about luck—it’s about leaping when others hesitate. As she puts it: “Let the people trade.” In an uncertain era, that’s not just a slogan; it’s a revolution. And if anyone can choreograph the future, it’s this self-made sensation.
