Luana Lopes Lara
Luana Lopes Lara | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1996 (age 29–30) |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS) |
| Known for | Co-founder of Kalshi Youngest self-made woman billionaire |
Luana Lopes Lara (born 1996) is a Brazilian entrepreneur who currently serves as the chief operating officer (COO) of the online prediction market site Kalshi, which she co-founded with Tarek Mansour.[1] She currently has a net worth of about $2.6 billion at the age of 29 in 2026, making her the youngest woman billionaire and joining the list of America's richest self-made women according to Forbes.[2][3][4]
Early life and education
[edit]Lara was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil on May 20, 1996. For eight years she attended a Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Joinville, before being engaged in a production of Swan Lake at the Salzburger Landestheater in Austria for a few months.[3][5][6] According to Forbes, Lara won a gold medal in the Brazilian Astronomy Olympiad and bronze in the Santa Catarina Mathematics Olympiad during her youth.[7]
She attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which she graduated with a degree in computer science in 2018.[3][8][5] While a student at MIT, Lara interned at Bridgewater Associates and Citadel Securities.[9]
Career
[edit]In 2018, Lara founded Kalshi with Tarek Mansour, whom she met while the two were students at MIT.[10][11] Following multiple rounds of venture capital funding led by Paradigm totaling more than $1 billion in volume in late 2025, Kalshi was valued at $11 billion.[3][5]
In December 2025, Forbes reported that, Lara became the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire at age 29, displacing previous titleholder Scale AI-cofounder Lucy Guo.[3] Her net worth, estimated to be about $2.6 billion largely derives from her 12% stake in Kalshi.[3][12]
In 2024, Kalshi received federal approval to offer contracts on U.S. presidential elections. It was the first time in more than a century that such trading had been legally permitted in the United States.[3]
References
[edit]- ↑ "Kalshi - Company Profile". Forbes.
- ↑ "Luana Lopes Lara". Forbes. Retrieved 2026-03-24.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Park, Alicia (December 4, 2025). "Kalshi's cofounder is now world's youngest self-made woman billionaire". Forbes. Archived from the original on February 17, 2026. Retrieved March 3, 2025.
- ↑ Chung, Andrea Murphy, Grace. "Forbes Richest Self-Made Women in America 2026". Forbes. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - 1 2 3 Fröhlich, Christoph (2026-01-06). "Luana Lopes Lara: 11 Fakten über die Selfmade-Milliardärin". DAS INVESTMENT (in German). Retrieved 2026-03-21.
- ↑ Oetjen, Lea M. (2026-01-07). "Ex-Ballerina gründet Online-Wettbörse – und wird jüngste Selfmade-Milliardärin der Welt". Business Insider (in German). Retrieved 2026-03-21.
- ↑ Park, Alicia. "How Kalshi's Cofounder Went From Professional Ballerina To World's Youngest Self-Made Woman Billionaire".
- ↑ "Luana Lopes Lara". CNBC. 2026-02-25. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
- ↑ Royle, Orianna Rose (December 4, 2025). "Meet Luana Lopes Lara: The 29-year-old ballerina spent summers working for Ray Dalio—now she's the youngest female self-made billionaire".
- ↑ "These MIT Grads Were Interns at Goldman and Citadel. Now They Want to Democratize Hedging. | Institutional Investor". www.institutionalinvestor.com. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
- ↑ Roeder, Oliver (2026-02-11). "This 29-year-old is worth $15b and wants you to bet on everything". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
- ↑ "Luana Lopes Lara". Forbes. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
See also
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