Kalshi led a fresh wave of crypto and decentralized-finance funding, closing a $1.2 billion raise that highlights sustained investor appetite for prediction markets and event-driven trading platforms. The round dwarfs every other deal in the latest cohort and underlines how quickly the category has moved from niche curiosity to institutional capital magnet.
Why it matters
Prediction markets sit at the intersection of regulated derivatives infrastructure and consumer-facing trading UX — a combination that Tier 1 funds have spent two years quietly underweighting. Kalshi's raise reframes that gap. The category now competes directly with offshore perps venues for event-driven flow, and the size of this round signals that allocators expect volume to keep scaling rather than revert.
DeFi infrastructure drew the next cluster of large checks. Canton Network raised $335 million, Exa closed $250 million, and Arc secured $222 million — three deals that together move roughly $800 million into market-structure and settlement layers rather than consumer-facing apps.
Market impact
Lending protocol Morpho added $175 million, and OpenRouter, an AI inference routing layer, took $153 million — evidence that the AI x DeFi convergence continues to attract dedicated capital. The full cohort, filtered to projects above a $50 million market cap with Tier 1 backing, totals more than $2.3 billion, with prediction markets and DeFi infrastructure capturing the bulk of it.
Source: [source](http://telegraph.controller.bot/files/8336652911/AgACAgIAAxkBAAI6JGov-w4zaSdu1Yvq5McKFmZvaf2pAAI9HmsbmSaASa_a4UhaeNwQAQADAgADeQADPAQ)
Frequently asked questions
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How large was Kalshi's latest funding round?
Kalshi led the cohort with a $1.2 billion raise, the largest single deal in the latest crypto and DeFi funding wave tracked by CryptoRank.
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Which other projects raised in the same cohort?
Canton Network raised $335M, Exa $250M, Arc $222M, Morpho $175M, and OpenRouter $153M — all filtered to projects with market cap above $50M and Tier 1 backing.
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Why are prediction markets attracting institutional capital now?
Prediction markets sit at the intersection of regulated derivatives infrastructure and consumer-facing trading UX. Allocators appear to view the category as a structural competitor to offshore perps venues for event-driven flow.
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What share of the cohort went to DeFi infrastructure?
Canton Network, Exa, and Arc together pulled roughly $800M into market-structure and settlement layers — the bulk of the non-Kalshi capital in the cohort.
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Is the AI x DeFi convergence still attracting dedicated capital?
Yes — Morpho's $175M DeFi lending raise and OpenRouter's $153M AI inference routing round both landed in the top tier of the cohort, consistent with sustained investor interest in that overlap.
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