Prediction market boom spurs new VC fund backed by Polymarket, Kalshi CEOs

A new venture capital firm focused on prediction markets is launching with backing from Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan and Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour, Bloomberg reported.

The firm, called 5c(c) Capital (named after a section of the Commodity Exchange Act that governs prediction markets) may be the first venture fund built specifically to invest in companies shaped by that regulatory and market structure.

“We want to capitalize on the second-, third-, and fourth-order effects of what we built ourselves,” the founders wrote in a document viewed by Bloomberg.

The launch comes as prediction markets shift from a niche corner of finance into a more visible part of how people track events. Since the U.S. presidential election, trading volumes have climbed and new users have entered the space. Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi now host contracts tied to politics, economic data and cultural events, turning public opinion into tradable signals. Polymarket’s trades run on the blockchain. Many crypto-native companies, including Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken, as well as Robinhood (HOOD), have also entered the space in recent months.

That growth has created new business openings beyond the platforms themselves. Startups are beginning to build data tools, liquidity services and compliance systems that support these markets.

5c(c) Capital plans to raise up to $35 million and invest in about 20 portfolio companies over the next two years, according to the document. The strategy centers on early-stage bets tied to infrastructure and services around prediction markets rather than the exchanges alone.

Early backing includes more than twenty investors, among them a portfolio manager at Millennium Management, several crypto-focused venture firms and founders of other prediction market platforms such as PredictIt.

Polymarket declined to comment. Kalshi did not respond in time for publication.