Sports betting has been rocket fuel for Kalshi, with wagers on athletic endeavors propelling the company’s revenue and valuation.
Now, Kalshi, a prediction market giant, is set to gain more prominence on one of the biggest athletic stages: the World Cup.
Kalshi is expected to announce on Friday that it has become an official partner of FIFA, thanks to a branding and product deal with the World Cup’s existing prediction market partner, the little-known platform ADI Predictstreet.
The move is Kalshi’s latest effort to use the world’s most popular sport to propel growth as it races to scale. Investors valued the company at $22 billion last month — up more than fourfold since October — on the back of its huge growth. And it has been ramping up the ability for Wall Street investment firms to operate on its platform.
The partnership Kalshi plans to announce means that its brand will be plastered on ads surrounding the field at World Cup matches and on TV and online.
The logo for ADI Predictstreet, an Abu Dhabi-based company that formally opened for business shortly before this year’s World Cup, has become a common sight on stadium Jumbotrons and in footage from matches.
Yet as Front Office Sports pointed out this week, it has seen only modest betting volumes despite that omnipresence: Some matches have drawn less than $20 worth of bets.
Contrast that with Kalshi, which saw nearly $10 billion in betting on the World Cup in the tournament’s first two weeks, a company spokeswoman said. The platform has also recorded more than $1.6 billion in daily volume during the competition, its biggest ever and well above its pretournament levels of nearly $1 billion.
The betting surge has boosted Kalshi’s top line, with the company now collecting well north of $2 billion in annualized revenue, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly about the company’s finances.
The partnership to be announced will also benefit ADI Predictstreet, which operates in far fewer markets than its larger rival. Under the terms of the partnership, Kalshi will funnel betting volume to ADI Predictstreet’s platform across international markets. (ADI Predictstreet operates in a handful of markets, while Kalshi is available in more than 100 countries.)
Any further gains from the partnership could be helpful for what may be Kalshi’s biggest ambition yet: an initial public offering.
The Information reported this month, citing unnamed sources, that Kalshi had held informal talks with investment banks about going public.
In an interview on CNBC this week, Tarek Mansour, a founder and the chief executive of Kalshi, confirmed that the company was “thinking” about an I.P.O. but that it wouldn’t happen this year.
“A company of our financial profile with the rate of growth that we’re seeing, that sort of conversation has to happen,” he told CNBC.
