Success Story: Meet Luana Lopes Lara, From Being a Ballerina to World’s Youngest Woman Billionaire

Meet the world’s youngest self-made billionaire who has made history. Luana Lopes Lara, a 29 year old Brazilian entrepreneur, is an inspiration to many.

While interning in New York City in 2018, Luana Lopes Lara and her co-founder Tarek Mansour came up with the idea for ‘Kalshi’. They realized that there was a need for a platform where users could trade directly on the results of real world events. She became a billionaire because of Kalshi, her prediction market platform, which recently reached a worth of 11 billion USD. Forbes reports that Lucy Guo of Scale AI, who had recently surpassed Taylor Swift’s ranking, has been eclipsed by Lara’s quick ascent.

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After a 1 billion USD investment, Kalshi’s value increased significantly, going from a 2 billion USD valuation in June to 11 billion USD in December 2025. Both co-founders became billionaires during this round of investment. With an estimated 12% ownership in Kalshi, Lopes Lara’s personal net worth is around 1.3 billion USD.

“We discovered that the bulk of trading happens when people have a certain viewpoint on the future and then try to reflect that in the markets,” Lara told Forbes. Her story is really inspiring people who want to build their career in business and be a billionaire like her.

To everyone asking, I clearly have no idea what’s happening https://t.co/9kdZntMh46 — Luana Lopes Lara (@luanalopeslara) November 6, 2024

Who is Luana Lopes Lara? 

Luana Lopes Lara was born in Brazil. She received her training as a professional ballerina at the renowned Bolshoi Theatre School. She worked as a professional in Austria for a while after finishing high school. Her mother and father were her inspiration and she did well in school, winning numerous gold and bronze medals in the national and regional science/math Olympiads in Brazil.

She went to the United States to continue her education, where she earned degrees in mathematics and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She gained expertise in quantitative trading during her internships at prestigious financial companies like Bridgewater Associates, Citadel, and Five Rings Capital while she was a student at MIT.