Kalshi YC Application

Winter 2019Active

Kalshi went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2019 batch as a Fintech company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2019
Industry: Fintech
Team size: 125
Status: Active
Launched: 2018

Founders

Luana Lopes LaraFounder
Tarek MansourFounder

What Kalshi does

Kalshi ( is the first federally regulated exchange where you can trade on the outcome of events. We built Kalshi because we believe that people should be able to capitalize on what they know and have opinions on. We make this possible by expanding what people can trade on and allowing them trade in the domain of everyday knowledge. Kalshi is developing a new asset class, “event contracts,” and a financial exchange for trading on the outcome of events: we are federally regulated by the CFTC as the first-ever legal futures exchange in the U.S. for trading on a broad category of events.

Kalshi's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Kalshi, Winter 2019 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Kalshi

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Federally regulated exchange for event trading

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We built Kalshi to create the first U.S. federally regulated exchange where users trade event contracts - financial instruments based on outcomes of real-world events. Our platform turns everyday knowledge and opinions into tradable assets on events like weather, economic indicators, or political outcomes.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live in New York City and the company is based here as well.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Being based in New York gives us proximity to financial markets, regulatory bodies like the CFTC, and access to talent experienced in trading and compliance. This setup aligns directly with building a regulated exchange.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Kalshi YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Kalshi's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Kalshi would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.