Original｜Odaily Planet Daily（@OdailyChina）
Author ｜Wenser（@wenser 2010）
The trading volume of prediction markets is climbing steadily, and their ecosystem is expanding rapidly.
Yesterday, a venture capital firm 5c(c) Capital initiated by two former Kalshi employees released its latest fundraising plan, aiming to raise 35 million dollars for investments in startups related to prediction markets. Notably, the firm has not only gained the support of Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan but also other investors, including individuals from a16z, Ribbit Capital, and Multicoin Capital.
Meanwhile, this firm is the first venture capital institution that focuses on investments in the prediction market industry and is the same entity that has attracted investments from two industry giants, Kalshi and Polymarket, which can be described as "unprecedented in the industry." Considering the previous news of Kalshi initiating a prediction market alliance, planning to hold a prediction market conference, Polymarket opening LP market-making incentives, and the emergence of various prediction market data platforms, the prediction market is gradually detaching from the native cryptocurrency market and becoming an independent emerging industry ecosystem.
When the trading volume of an industry achieves exponential growth within a single year, and when a platform's monthly trading volume rivals the entire industry's trading volume from a few months ago, the prediction market is aggressively penetrating the territory of traditional betting platforms.
Polymarket CEO invests in a former Kalshi employee: A common choice of the prediction market duopoly
It is understood that the name of 5c(c) Capital comes from the clauses related to prediction markets in the U.S. Commodity Exchange Act.
Moreover, the two founders are veteran figures from Kalshi—Adhi Rajaprabhakaran was the No. 2 trader in Kalshi's affiliated market-making department, Kalshi Trading, and is also the creator of the well-known prediction market podcast "50 Cent Dollars"; Noah Zingler-Sternig served as Kalshi's operations head (similar to COO) and led the integration of Kalshi with Robinhood Markets Inc.
In addition, the fund plans to invest in about 20 companies over the next two years, focusing on market makers, index design, and other infrastructure directions of prediction markets; its first round of fundraising will be completed within the next month.
Luxurious lineup of investors: spanning traditional venture capital, cryptocurrency venture capital, prediction markets, and traditional sports betting platforms
In addition to confirmed support from Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and the lack of a direct response from Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, the other investors in 5c(c) Capital can be called a "luxury lineup"—including venture capital veterans like A16z's Marc Andreessen (who invested through the Moneta Luna fund), as well as industry veterans such as Ribbit Capital founder Micky Malka and former Multicoin Capital managing partner Kyle Samani, and even an investment manager from the hedge fund Millennium, which manages over 70 billion dollars, along with founders from the prediction market platform PredictIt, among other industry insiders and outsiders.
If the above list of investors reflects more of the interests of venture capital firms, then the actions of these two participating investors can be regarded as "industry demand behavior" similar to that of Polymarket and Kalshi. It is understood that Jeremy Levine, CEO of the fantasy sports platform Underdog, and Jacob Fortinsky, CEO of the sports prediction platform Novig, are also on the list.
It is apparent that while the industry is developing rapidly, both prediction market platforms and traditional sports betting platforms are striving to solidify their developmental foundations.
Aspiring goals of the new prediction market fund: future industry trading volume may reach 10 trillion dollars
It is worth mentioning that the two founders of 5c(c) Capital highlighted two key messages in this investment document:
First, they stated, “We hope to utilize the (product platform) we built to create more secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary effects.” Between the lines, it’s easy to see that their focus is not just on primary investments in the construction of prediction market platforms, but also includes capital investments, risk management, equity trading, and more layers of liquidity attraction and inflow/outflow based on various niche tracks created from prediction market platforms.
Second, regarding the future development of the industry, the document points out, “Currently, prediction markets seem limited to the sports domain, but this is only a part of the industry; in the future, the trading volume of this industry could reach 10 trillion dollars.”
Not to mention, the recent operational data from Kalshi may provide some evidence: as of March 22, Kalshi's monthly nominal trading volume has exceeded 9 billion dollars. At this rate, Kalshi's trading volume in March will surpass 12.7 billion dollars, a month-on-month growth of 21.5%. In comparison, Kalshi's annual nominal trading volume for 2025 is about 23.8 billion dollars, which means that within just one month (March), Kalshi's trading volume will reach approximately 53.4% of last year's total trading volume. Additionally, last October, the overall trading volume of the prediction market industry was around 10 billion dollars, while now, Kalshi alone has surpassed this figure.
Previously, Odaily Planet Daily predicted in several articles that the prediction market would become another trillion-dollar industry track independent of the cryptocurrency market; now it seems that this prediction is gradually becoming a reality.
Prediction markets break away from cryptocurrency markets to form an independent ecology: funds, industry alliances, data services, APIs, etc., create a closed loop
In an era where AI has become an important driving force in the global economic system, prediction markets have emerged as another rare fast-growing track, and their closed-loop ecosystem is rapidly improving.
Apart from the mentioned 35 million dollars fundraising industry fund, the prediction market industry is piecing together its foundational infrastructure, industry organizations, and application platforms.
Last December, Coinbase announced the acquisition of the prediction market platform The Clearing Company, founded by former employees of Kalshi and Polymarket. Although the specific amount of the acquisition has not been disclosed, the company previously completed a 15 million dollars seed round financing, making it one of the challengers gaining momentum in the industry.
At the same time, Kalshi, Crypto.com, Robinhood, Coinbase, and Underdog, five well-known institutions, jointly announced the establishment of a prediction market alliance (the Coalition for Prediction Markets, abbreviated as CPM). Recommended Reading “Kalshi allies with Coinbase, Robinhood, and others to strive to end the 'casino theory'”.
At the end of last year, Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour issued a call to hold the first prediction market conference in March 2026. At that time, researchers, economists, policymakers, and traders will discuss core issues surrounding prediction markets and knowledge aggregation.
In February of this year, Polymarket publicly announced its second official acquisition, announcing the acquisition of the prediction market API startup Dome, which is a Y Combinator 2025 Fall incubator project, providing a unified prediction market API that helps developers build applications, trading bots, and data dashboards that can interface simultaneously with multiple platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi. This firm previously received a 500,000 dollar investment from Y Combinator and completed a 4.7 million dollar seed round financing. Its first official acquisition was a previous purchase of QCEX, a licensed derivatives exchange in the U.S., allowing it to successfully return to the American market.
With the increasing trading volume in the industry, data analysis platforms for prediction market platforms are emerging one after another, including: Parity, Predictefy, and KalshiData.
Additionally, numerous on-chain trading tools and AI Agent trading tools for Polymarket have emerged, including Insiders.bot, Hubble ai, and Alchemy's AgentCard.
It is no exaggeration to say that the upstream, midstream, and downstream of prediction markets are currently filled with investment and entrepreneurial opportunities. Subsequently, we will gradually discuss this in the Cryptocurrency Bear Market Entrepreneurship Guide series of articles.
The trend has taken shape, waiting for the flowers to bloom
Previously, Kalshi held the top position in the valuation of prediction market platforms with a valuation of 22 billion dollars, surpassing many traditional sports betting platforms, including FanDuel (also known as Flutter, 19 billion dollars), DraftKings (12.75 billion dollars), bet365 (12 billion dollars), etc.
Furthermore, U.S. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig has previously indicated that prediction markets could become "truth machines" and is preparing regulatory rules and recruiting relevant talent for them. From this perspective, prediction markets are no longer a niche sector within the cryptocurrency market but have become a significant benchmark emerging industry in the golden era of the U.S. financial market.
Although there are reports that U.S. legislators will propose a bipartisan bill to prohibit prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi from predicting sports events, this is yet another example of prediction markets moving from the margins to the mainstream.
After all, the fact that over 36% of American voters are users of prediction market platforms cannot be ignored, and the rising monthly trading volume data of prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket cannot lie.
Recommended Reading
Why Prediction Markets Truly Are Not Gambling Platforms
The Future Battle of Prediction Markets: To the Left is a Casino, to the Right is News
Not Enough to Eat? The Dual Giants of Prediction Markets Target the Payments and AI Big Cake
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