NEWS | Polymarket, the blockchain based prediction market platform, is raising $1 billion in new funding that values the company at $21 billion. That is a jump of roughly 40 percent from the $15 billion price tag it carried just months ago in April. The round is being led by 1789 Capital, a venture firm contributing about $300 million of the total raise.
1789 Capital was co founded with Donald Trump Jr, who serves as a partner there and also sits on Polymarket's advisory board. The firm had already put around $200 million into the platform before this round, which brings its combined stake to roughly $500 million. Trump Jr also advises Kalshi, Polymarket's main rival, which was valued at $22 billion of its own in May.
Prediction markets, where users bet on outcomes ranging from political speeches to reality TV finales, have moved from a niche curiosity to a serious financial category in a short span of time. Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, remains Polymarket's largest shareholder with about 22 percent ownership, a sign that mainstream finance is already deeply tied into this market.
In BMN's view, this deal is notable less for the dollar figure and more for what it signals about political and financial power overlapping in a single fast growing industry. Polymarket still faces unresolved fights with several state governments over who gets to regulate these platforms, even as federal regulators have pushed to keep oversight at the national level. That tension is likely to shape how far this sector can grow.
With a Trump linked investor doubling down on both sides of the prediction market race, how long before regulators decide who actually gets to referee this growing industry?
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