Published on: September 25, 2025, at 12:41 PM.
Updated on: September 25, 2025, at 12:41 PM.
- Startup specializing in prediction markets secures $3.5 million from diverse investors
- Company aims to introduce “viral” prediction markets
Melee, a new contender in the prediction markets sector, has successfully raised $3.5 million from a variety of investors. This funding will aid the company’s initiatives to innovate the event contracts landscape.
Numerous angel investors, along with DBA and Variant, participated in this pre-seed funding round. Melee’s vision is to decentralize prediction markets in contrast to established players like Kalshi and Polymarket, enabling users to establish their own markets. Currently, leading exchanges typically dictate the event contracts available to users.
“Melee is a permissionless prediction platform designed to scale like the Internet,” stated a recent post from the company on X. “Anyone can create a market about anything, whether it be a fact or an opinion.”
The startup is positioning itself as the “next generation of prediction markets,” harnessing the creator-driven, boundless possibilities of the internet, branding it as “viral markets.”
Melee Reflects Growing Investor Interest in Prediction Markets
At present, Melee is in a waitlist phase as indicated on its website, yet this youthful firm is a testament to a significant trend: investors are eager to back prediction markets and are prepared to invest substantial capital.
Major capital raises this year by industry giants Kalshi and Polymarket have reached nine figures, estimating their valuations at approximately $5 billion and $9 billion, respectively. In less than nine months, the prediction markets sector has accumulated a total of $216 million in raised funds, more than double the amount seen in 2024.
A primary motivation for professional investors supporting yes/no exchanges is the alignment with cryptocurrency. Melee utilizes the Solana blockchain, fitting that criteria, and DBA, one of the backers of Melee’s pre-seed funding, is a crypto investment firm based in New York.
Empowering Creators
While there are instances of viral content making its way into traditional prediction markets, this is not the standard approach for existing companies. Operators such as Kalshi and Polymarket primarily focus on contracts linked to economic indicators, financial assets, political events, and sports.
Melee seeks to disrupt this model by placing the power in the hands of creators. The company promises a robust revenue model for creators, free from reputational risks. In simpler terms, Melee’s creators will have incentives to foster positive interactions with traders, with effective engagement leading to profit generation.
“Integrating this creator-focused incentive structure with dynamic price mechanics unlocks real-time viral markets. Similar to the trend of meme tokens, creators will inherently compete to devise markets centered around cultural events as they unfold, resulting in enhanced and more inventive markets at scale,” the company noted in a recent post on X.