Prediction markets have surged over the past year, with ads appearing everywhere from World Cup matches to New York City subway stations. While Kalshi and Polymarket dominate the space, a new wave of startups is clamoring to carve out a place in one of the buzziest new sectors in finance. One of those is Pascal, which aspires to offer a more refined version of prediction markets than existing platforms, and on Thursday announced a $9 million Series A funding round.
The New York-based startup is a prediction market platform like Kalshi, but one that positions itself as closer to a class of trading products known as perpetual futures. Pascal says its users can trade on future events with competitively low fees while using advanced tools designed for serious traders and institutions rather than casual bettors.
“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,” said Pascal cofounder Ivo Crnkovic-Rubsamen who launched the company along with Matthew Downey.
Union Square Ventures led the fundraise. Crnkovic-Rubsamen and Downey declined to specify at what valuation the startup raised its most recent stash of capital. The Series A builds on a seed round Pascal held last August, which raised $6 million from Wintermute Ventures and DBA.
