Polymarket raises $70m from Thiel’s Founders Fund
Polymarket, recently closed a $45 million Series B funding round led by billionaire Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. The total raised in the firm’s latest funding round brings the capital raised over two rounds to $70 million.
Polymarket, one of the most popular online prediction markets, allows users to bet on the outcomes of real-world events—everything from the number of times Elon Musk tweets in a week to whether or not Taylor Swift will get engaged in 2024 through “event contracts.”
Gamblers have already staked over $125 million on the 2024 presidential election on Polymarket, which lists former President Donald Trump as the favorite over President Joe Biden, with a 49% of winning.
Commenting on Founders Fund’s decision to invest in a platform that facilitates event-betting contracts for the first time, Joey Krug, a partner at the venture capital firm, said:
A lot of the reason why certain people don’t like prediction markets in the U.S. kind of dates back to pretty puritanical thinking about betting. In the short- to mid-term it’s good for Polymarket because they are targeting non-U.S. markets.