Following the path set by Taylor Swift and Scale AI’s Lucy Guo, Luana Lopes Lara has now been recognized as the youngest self-made female billionaire globally, achieved through her prediction market venture, Kalshi, which has attained a $11 billion valuation.
TL;DR
- Luana Lopes Lara is the youngest self-made female billionaire, co-founding Kalshi, a prediction market valued at $11 billion.
- She trained as a professional dancer in Rio, enduring rigorous 13-hour sessions and competitive sabotage.
- Lopes Lara pursued ballet professionally in Austria before returning to MIT with ambitions to become the next Steve Jobs.
- Her background in dance instilled persistence and grace, contributing to her success in building Kalshi with co-founder Tarek Mansour.
Prior to her recognition on Wall Street, she was undergoing instruction to become a professional dancer in Rio, experiencing grueling 13-hour sessions.
As detailed in a recent Forbes feature, her instructors at the Bolshoi Theater School in Brazil would place lit cigarettes beneath her leg to gauge her endurance before she sustained a burn.
She would attend academic lectures from 7 a.m. Until midday, then participate in ballet instruction from 1 p.m. Until 9 p.m., all while contending with rivalry from other performers who allegedly concealed slivers of glass in each other's footwear to undermine their peers.
Having completed her studies in 2013, she dedicated nine months to a professional ballet career in Austria, subsequently abandoning it to recommence her education at MIT, driven by an even grander ambition: to become the subsequent Steve Jobs.
This founder, born in the 1980s or 1990s, established a company valued at $11 billion within a six-year timeframe.
Similar to Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Larry Page, Lopes Lara encountered her future business collaborator, Tarek Mansour, during their university years. Their bond deepened after he started occupying the seat beside her in lectures to gain knowledge from her insights.
Lopes Lara would dedicate her summer breaks to undertaking internships, such as those at Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates and Ken Griffin’s Citadel. However, it was a third internship at Five Rings Capital in New York City during 2018, an opportunity both she and Mansour secured, that solidified their bond and their path as co-founders.
During their evening strolls back to their temporary housing, the concept for a prediction market enterprise—a platform where individuals can wager on the results of upcoming occurrences like elections, athletic contests, and cultural phenomena—originated.
The company was admitted into the venture capital firm Y Combinator’s startup accelerator program twelve months afterward, and by the year 2020, Kalshi had established itself as the inaugural federally regulated prediction market platform, having secured the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) endorsement.
Six years after its establishment, Kalshi secured $1 billion in funding, valuing the firm at $11 billion. This achievement propelled Lopes Lara and Mansour, who each hold an estimated 12% stake, into the billionaire ranks before they reached the age of thirty.
Research indicates that a sport is behind numerous accomplished women.
Lopes Lara's ascent to prominence in the tech industry isn't solely attributable to her internship background, sharp intellect, or fortunate circumstances; studies indicate that her time spent in the dance studio may have also played a contributing role.
Contrary to the long-standing stereotype that athletes and cheerleaders reach their zenith in secondary school, with intellectuals eventually triumphing—possibly by achieving roles like Coins2Day 500 CEO—it's actually the academically inclined students who tend to secure more likely to land an MBA, greater earnings, and executive positions.
This observation holds particularly strong for women. Findings from EY indicate that a remarkable 94% of women in top executive positions (the C-suite) have a background as athletes.
“The only correlation they can find of women in the C suite, the CEO spot, is that they all played sport—or the majority played sport,” Melinda French Gates previously highlighted. “And the thesis is they didn’t mind failing.”
“You step out of bounds playing soccer, you go right back to it. You lose the tennis match sometimes. You learn to fail and that failing is okay.”
Execs previously told Coins2Day that playing sports growing up taught them confidence, teamwork, discipline, and more.
Alex Immerman, a partner at a16z, informed Forbes that: “There are few better trainings for being told ‘no’ and pushing through anyway than being a professional ballerina—an injury or even a short rest could mean losing your spot.”
“Luana learned persistence with grace early on…and she’s carried that same calm confidence into building Kalshi.”
