Polymarket is reportedly raising around $1 billion in a new funding round led by 1789 Capital, with Donald Trump Jr.'s investment firm putting in about $300 million.
The deal values the prediction-market platform at approximately $21 billion post-money, up sharply from its $15 billion valuation just four months ago.
The latest financing would deepen 1789 Capital's position in Polymarket, after the firm previously invested about $200 million, while the prediction market continues to expand amid regulatory battles and intensifying competition from Kalshi.

Donald Trump Jr. advises Polymarket. He also advises Kalshi, Polymarket's biggest rival, and holds Kalshi equity worth more than $300,000.

Now his investment firm is putting another $300 million into Polymarket, part of a $1 billion round that values the prediction market platform at $21 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

1789 Capital, where Trump Jr. is a partner, had already invested about $200 million in Polymarket. The new money brings its total stake to around $500 million, making it one of the platform's largest backers. Trump Jr. has described his advisory roles at both companies as personal, telling the New York Times he acts with "no policy position and no role within the administration whatsoever."

The $21 billion valuation is a 40% jump from the $15 billion mark Polymarket carried after an ICE-backed round closed in April, and puts it just under Kalshi, which raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation in May. Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has put about $1.6 billion into Polymarket since October 2025, most of it under an agreement to commit up to $2 billion.

Advising both sides

Trump Jr. joined Polymarket's advisory board in 2025, shortly after 1789 Capital's first investment. His father's administration has argued that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not individual states, should regulate prediction markets -- a position both companies are counting on as they fight lawsuits from state attorneys general and, in Polymarket's case, a Baltimore lawsuit alleging its sports contracts are unlicensed betting dressed up as event trading.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are separately looking into 1789 Capital's expansion, given how many of its portfolio companies, including SpaceX, Anduril and Cerebras, hold federal contracts. 1789 Capital has called the inquiry partisan, and it hasn't produced any findings of wrongdoing so far.

The founder who emailed the SEC at 14

Polymarket's founder, Shayne Coplan, was 22 when he built the platform's first version alone from his apartment on New York's Lower East Side during the COVID-19 lockdown, after dropping out of NYU's computer science program. He bought Ethereum as a teenager for about $0.30 a token and, at 14, emailed the SEC about high-frequency trading rules. He's 28 now.

The platform runs on the Polygon blockchain and lets users trade contracts on real-world outcomes, such as elections, sports, and economic data. Early backers included Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Polychain Capital.

Polymarket's annualized revenue has topped $1.2 billion, and it's been hiring out of Wall Street and Silicon Valley to match. Whether that growth outpaces the regulatory and political questions stacking up around it, including its biggest backer's family ties to the people who oversee it, is the harder thing to call.

Polymarket lands $300M from Trump Jr.-linked 1789 Capital at $21B valuation -- TFN