Payments Lead
About the job
- 5+ years of experience in payments, fintech, or product operations.
- Lead the payments roadmap: prioritize and drive initiatives that improve payment success, speed, and user experience in coordination with Engineering and Growth and other parts of the organization.
- Manage PSPs and financial partners: negotiate terms, oversee performance, and troubleshoot operational issues with processors, banks, and other partners.
- Optimize conversion and payouts: continuously improve the deposit and withdrawal experience, authorization rates, and settlement times through data-driven experimentation.
- Monitor and analyze payment health: build dashboards, track KPIs (authorization rates, declines, chargebacks, latency), and identify root causes.
- Ensure compliance and regulatory alignment: Partner with Legal/Compliance to handle KYC, AML, and CFTC-related obligations in the payments flow.
- Manage fraud prevention and response: manage fraud tools and policies, ensuring a balance between risk control and user experience. Monitor fraud and compliance health.
- Be hands-on: dive into payment ops workflows, test new integrations, reconcile issues, and own execution when needed.
- None
About the company
Kalshi runs a US federally regulated exchange that lets traders speculate on whether future events will occur using event contracts. These contracts are approved by the CFTC and enable positions on outcomes like statistics or legislative results. Traders place bets on events via Kalshi’s trading platform, and the company earns revenue from transaction fees on each trade. Kalshi differentiates itself by being the first federally regulated market for event contracts, focusing on a new asset class within the futures ecosystem, and attracting both individual investors and institutional traders. Its goal is to give participants a regulated venue to hedge or speculate on economically significant events, expanding the scope of traditional futures markets.
Company Size
501-1,000
Company Stage
Series F
Total Funding
$2.5B
Headquarters
New York City, New York
Founded
2019
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- July 2026 revenue annualized above $4 billion signals explosive sports demand.
- Public and Coinbase partnerships broaden retail automation and real-time execution.
- Biotech pilot markets launched July 2026 create new non-sports verticals.
What critics are saying
- New York sued July 31, 2026 seeking to block all event contracts nationwide.
- CFTC advisory on September 22, 2026 highlighted insider-trading and fraud enforcement across Kalshi.
- A Supreme Court loss on sports betting erases Kalshi's core fee base by 2027.
What makes Kalshi unique
- Kalshi remains the only CFTC-regulated U.S. exchange for event contracts, despite 2026 litigation.
- Its September 2026 tribal app partnership expands distribution through Tunica-Biloxi ownership.
- DoubleZero and ProCap integrations turn Kalshi data into institutional trading infrastructure.
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Benefits
Company Equity
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
-2%1 year growth
9%2 year growth
23%Kalshi has hired former FBI agent Sean Fern to lead its first anti-money laundering team as prediction markets face increasing regulatory scrutiny. Fern, who previously served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and worked on the FBI's international corruption squad, will monitor suspicious activity on the platform. According to TickerTracker, Kalshi has processed $260 billion in bets this year, triple the amount traded in all of 2025. The platform faces mounting pressure over market manipulation and insider trading. Federal regulators recently settled with former Rep. George Santos over market manipulation, whilst prosecutors indicted individuals for allegedly using non-public information on rival platform Polymarket. PitchBook estimates Kalshi's value at around $40 billion. The company has 250 employees and plans to double headcount within six months.
The executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling resigned in late September after accepting a $2 million donation from prediction market platform Kalshi without board approval. Heather Maurer, who began the role in January, required directors to sign nondisclosure agreements before revealing the donation at an April conference. When questioned, she acknowledged Kalshi had not agreed to fund safety measures or promote addiction helplines, sparking internal revolt. The controversy prompted several state organisations to sever ties with NCPG, including Washington's Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling and Ohio Casino Control Commission in September. The backlash centred on NCPG creating a separate "financial services and trading" donor category for Kalshi, exempting the platform from public safeguards required of traditional sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel. Kalshi has grown to a valuation above $20 billion.
Four tribes from California and Oklahoma have launched prediction apps in partnership with Kalshi, marking a significant split in Native American opposition to prediction markets. Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town launched PokkeTrades, whilst three California tribes — Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, Greenville Rancheria, and Alturas Indian Rancheria — introduced their own platforms. The move follows the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana launching SaltTrade Derivatives last month. Each tribe owns and controls its app whilst Kalshi handles trading operations behind the scenes. The partnerships highlight a divide within Indian Country. Casino gaming generated over $46 billion in revenue in 2025 for tribes, and several have filed lawsuits against Kalshi alleging violations of tribal gaming rights. However, some tribes view prediction markets as a new revenue source, particularly those whose geography limits traditional gaming development.
Public is launching AI trading agents that execute automated strategies on prediction markets through a partnership with Kalshi. The New York-based investing app allows users to instruct AI agents to trade on real-world events or use prediction market data to inform broader portfolio decisions. Users set a strategy and the AI converts it into fixed rules, ranging from sending alerts when odds change to automatically buying or selling investments. The agents can monitor markets continuously and execute strategies investors might not physically manage themselves. Public must approve all rules before agents can act. The platform aims to prevent unintended trades by converting requests into visual plans requiring user review before activation as fixed code. The product targets active, self-directed investors wanting to track events affecting portfolios, such as Federal Reserve rate decisions or regulatory approvals. Public, founded in 2019 and backed by Accel and Tiger Global, manages billions in assets across millions of users.
PitchBook has valued prediction market startup Kalshi at $30.4 billion based on expected 2028 adjusted earnings, with scenarios ranging from $22.8 billion in a bear case to $42.1 billion in a bullish scenario. The research firm forecasts Kalshi's revenue will reach $6.4 billion by 2030. The company raised $1 billion in a Series F round in May at a $22 billion valuation. However, its business model faces significant uncertainty from pending Supreme Court litigation over whether its sports offerings constitute unlicensed gambling. Sports currently account for 69.9% of Kalshi's event fees, rising to 82.4% when including exotic bets. PitchBook estimates an adverse Supreme Court ruling could remove $1.4 billion from 2030 forecasts. The report suggests Kalshi maintains a competitive edge over rival Polymarket through partnerships with platforms like Robinhood and market makers like Susquehanna.