29-year-old Lebanese woman becomes the youngest female billionaire, her prediction market project valued at $11 billion

[Crypto World] 29-year-old Lopes Lara has just set a new record—becoming the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. She has edged out 31-year-old Scale AI co-founder Lucy Guo, who only took over the title from Taylor Swift this past April.

Lopes Lara’s story begins at MIT. She and Kalshi’s other founder, Mansour, are both from Lebanon and became friends in the international student community at MIT. Both studied computer science and often had overlapping class schedules. What truly brought them together was an internship in 2018—both worked at Five Rings Capital in New York.

The turning point came quite suddenly. One night, as they were walking back to their intern apartment from the financial district, they started discussing the idea of building a prediction market. That’s how Kalshi was born.

How much is this project worth now? A $11 billion valuation, having just completed a $1 billion funding round. Paradigm led the round, with big names like Sequoia, a16z, and Y Combinator also joining in. From an MIT dorm room to a multi-billion dollar valuation, they accomplished this in less than seven years.