New Prediction Market Entrant Pascal Closes $9 Million Series A

Pascal, a New York-based prediction market startup, has closed a $9 million Series A funding round led by Union Square Ventures. The raise builds on a $6 million seed round the company closed last August with backing from Wintermute Ventures and DBA, signaling growing investor appetite for new entrants in the fast-expanding prediction markets space.

The funding arrives as the sector’s two dominant players, Kalshi and Polymarket, command a combined valuation north of $37 billion. Rather than go head-to-head with either platform, Pascal is carving out a different lane: institutional-grade infrastructure and trading mechanics built for professional traders instead of retail bettors.

Perpetual Futures Meet Event Contracts

Pascal’s core product applies perpetual futures-style mechanics to event contracts. A standard yes/no prediction market contract expires the moment an event resolves, but Pascal’s structure lets traders hold positions that function closer to the perpetual contracts already common on crypto derivatives exchanges. The company pairs that model with lower trading fees and tools built to cut down on “phantom fills” — trades that appear to execute but never actually settle.

“I would love to see a world where there are liquid markets for the types of risks that real businesses face and are interested in hedging,” cofounder Ivo Crnkovic-Rubsamen told Fortune. The company’s name is a nod to 17th-century mathematician Blaise Pascal, whose work on probability theory laid the groundwork for modern decision-making under uncertainty — a fitting namesake for a platform built around pricing risk.

Founders Bring Institutional Trading Pedigree

Crnkovic-Rubsamen and cofounder Matthew Downey met through institutional trading work before launching Pascal. Crnkovic-Rubsamen spent years as a quantitative trader at Bridgewater Associates and D.E. Shaw before serving as CEO of crypto derivatives exchange dYdX starting in 2024. Downey brings a background in high-frequency crypto trading. Both point to firsthand frustration with existing prediction market platforms as the motivation behind building tools tailored to serious traders rather than casual participants.

Pascal entered private beta in June and remains there, with the company declining to disclose current trading volumes. That keeps the platform largely untested at scale for now, even as the broader prediction markets category continues its rapid climb — advertising for platforms in the space has shown up everywhere from World Cup matches to New York City’s subway system over the past year, a sign of how quickly the category has moved from niche curiosity to mainstream fixture, not unlike the surge sports bettors have seen from prediction market platforms jockeying for attention alongside traditional sportsbooks.

Regulatory Scrutiny Still Looms

The category’s growth has not come without friction. Kalshi’s path to prominence was cemented by Commodity Futures Trading Commission approval back in 2020, and platforms in the space rose to broader public attention during the 2024 presidential election cycle. But multiple US states are now examining whether event contracts amount to unlicensed gambling, and several lawsuits are pending over whether prediction markets should fall under federal oversight or be regulated state by state — a question that could shape how newcomers like Pascal are allowed to operate as they scale.

Analysts tracking the space point to three things worth watching for Pascal specifically: whether it secures regulatory approvals or no-action letters that would distinguish it on the compliance front, how quickly it can attract market makers capable of supplying institutional-level liquidity, and whether its perpetual futures mechanic can generate sustained trading volume once the platform moves beyond private beta. With Kalshi reportedly in talks to raise new funding that could roughly double its already-massive valuation, the competitive gap Pascal is trying to occupy will only get more contested from here. For bettors and traders comparing the growing field of platforms, resources like a Kalshi vs. Polymarket breakdown can help clarify how the category’s giants differ before a new institutional-focused option like Pascal even enters the picture.