A new name has ascended to the top of the global wealth conversation, and in doing so, has eclipsed one of the world’s most influential superstars. Luana Lopes Lara—the 29-year-old Brazilian entrepreneur, former ballerina, and co-founder of Kalshi—has officially become the youngest self-made female billionaire, ending Taylor Swift’s long-held claim to the milestone.
A billion-dollar leap for Luana Lopes Lara
Lopes Lara reached the historic benchmark after Kalshi, her rapidly expanding prediction-market platform, completed a major investment round reportedly worth $1 billion. Led by Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, the round pushed Kalshi’s valuation to approximately $11 billion, driving the value of Lopes Lara’s shares to an estimated $1.3 billion.
The achievement dethrones not only Taylor Swift, who reportedly hit billionaire status at 33 in 2023, but also AI entrepreneur Lucy Guo, who had previously overtaken the music icon earlier this year.
What makes Lopes Lara’s meteoric rise even more remarkable is the path she took to reach it. A rigorous ballet background—shaped by intense training at the Bolshoi Theatre School in Joinville, Brazil—instilled near-unbreakable discipline. As Andreessen Horowitz partner Alex Immerman told Forbes, "There are few better trainings for being told 'no' and pushing through anyway than being a professional ballerina… Luana learned persistence with grace early on."
From ballet stages to MIT Labs
Lopes Lara spent nine months performing professionally in Austria before pivoting to computer science at MIT. It was there that she met Tarek Mansour, her Kalshi co-founder who now shares the same estimated net worth. During her academic years, Lopes Lara also interned at financial powerhouses including Citadel Securities—a firm previously thrust into the spotlight during the 2021 GameStop frenzy.
Her exposure to high-speed financial environments sparked the idea that eventually evolved into Kalshi. As she explained in her interview with Forbes, "We saw that most trading happens when people have some view about the future, and then try to find a way to put that in the markets."
Kalshi allows users to trade on future events—everything from elections to weather outcomes—by treating predictions as financial instruments rather than bets. This classification gives the platform regulatory approval to operate even where traditional online gambling is prohibited.
The rise of Lopes Lara marks yet another shift in the evolving landscape of young entrepreneurial wealth. While celebrity net-worth calculations are often scrutinized for accuracy, Kalshi’s valuation offers a concrete, investment-backed benchmark that places Lopes Lara firmly atop the list.