# Pascal

> Why we led the Series A in Pascal, a prediction market built by traders, for traders.

**Published by:** [Union Square Ventures](https://blog.usv.com/)
**Published on:** 2026-07-16
**URL:** https://blog.usv.com/pascal

## Content

Over the last 24 months, prediction markets have grown rapidly, consistently defied expectations, and quickly become an indelible part of our social and economic fabric. Prediction markets receive a lot of criticism, some warranted, but ultimately we believe these types of markets are important, will meaningfully extend beyond just sports betting, and will be a positive force in the world. The idea that markets can surface information and help us develop a much clearer understanding of the future across any topic is a compelling one. More efficient markets are less extractive and create better pricing, which in turn greases other parts of the real economy such as hedging. Where prediction markets are today is no small feat. After decades of interest in the concept and several failed startup attempts, many had written off the category as too challenging or still too early. Yet, two teams were patient and relentless enough to bring these markets to life. Kalshi fought through years of regulatory morass to offer event contracts to US users and has meaningfully reshaped sports betting. Polymarket was equally pioneering and has carved out a large user base globally. Prediction Markets' Second Wave While we are large fans of the work these companies have done to create the category, we also strongly believe that prediction markets are still in their early innings. With a modern toolset, we believe a much richer product with a stronger foundation can be built today than what was available to the leading platforms six years ago. As the category expands, there will be room for multiple large players. The last 15 years of observing and investing in novel market infrastructure and exchanges has also informed our view. Consistently, much later entrants with a novel tack on the market have been able to take serious market share. Like what Binance did to Coinbase, or Blur did to OpenSea, or FTX initially did to Binance, or Morpho did to Aave, or Hyperliquid did to dYdX – and so on. One common theme in these examples has been focusing on a key underserved user segment. An Exchange Built for Traders When we met Ivo and Matt, they had a very simple but important observation: real traders are still not well-served in prediction markets. They’d both spent meaningful time as full-time traders working across different markets, venues, and scales of operations, and then worked together at dYdX where they helped shape one of the most innovative exchanges of its era. They have deep experience across all facets of an exchange, and when they started exploring prediction markets, they quickly felt like the existing venues had none of the feel and ergonomics that very mature exchanges have. Everything from order types, to execution reliability, to capital efficiency, to fee structures still felt quite early. What emerged from this experimentation is Pascal, a new prediction market venue built entirely by traders for traders. It is an exchange built from the ground up to meet the needs of serious participants – not just an expansive feature set, but also a great interface and a highly performant and reliable API, all without custodying users’ capital. In many ways, it is the type of venue that Pascal's team of former-traders would be excited to use. The Series A We are very excited to have led Pascal’s Series A financing. Pascal came out of stealth into private beta three weeks ago. They’ve received very positive feedback on UI, API quality and design, and liquidity and have already processed over 2 million contracts – all organic volume with fees and without incentives. If you are an active trader on prediction markets, I highly recommend giving the interface or API a try. They already have great liquidity across key markets and are just getting started. They have built an exceptional, lean team in New York and are hiring, including for frontend engineers.

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