Prediction markets have been around for a long time.
16th century Italians placed bets on who the next Pope would be, and election betting in the U.S. goes (at least) as far back as the late 1800s. Amid the uncertain frenzy of major current events, people look to betting as they try to make sense of the unknown.
So, it tracks that prediction market Polymarket has become increasingly popular throughout the 2024 U.S. election, which has seen Polymarket users place $3.3 billion in bets on Trump vs. Harris. However, that massive volume is more complicated than it looks, my colleague Leo Schwartz reported recently: Two blockchain research firms, Chaos Labs and Inca Digital, have found signs that wash trading—a tactic to artificially inflate trading activity—constitutes a sizable portion of this volume.
This naturally raises concerns about Polymarket’s accuracy as a prediction tool—the goal of any prediction market, fun aside, is to predict, after all. I talked to Schwartz about it over a Slack call on election day yesterday, as good a time as any to meditate on what it means to make sense of uncertainty. As I was writing this story, Polymarket was giving Donald Trump a 61% chance of winning the election. That said, odds are really just that. How seriously should we be taking prediction markets?
“I think we should just take a step back and do a little critical thinking about whether we should really be taking them seriously, or at least what other dynamics might be at play in creating those odds,” Schwartz told me.
Schwartz says prediction markets, in a way that’s not all that different from polling, are “metrics of sentiment.” And if the underdog ultimately wins, that doesn’t mean the prediction markets were wrong, either. Much like a poll, the prediction markets are a snapshot. They offer pieces of data, not promises.
“If by the time people are reading this Kamala has won, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the prediction markets were wrong,” said Schwartz. “It just means that there were more people putting money down saying ‘I think there’s a better chance that Trump is going to win.’”
This seemed like a good way to re-introduce you to Leo, who’s been featured in Term Sheet before and whose work I deeply admire. I’m about to go on vacation for almost two weeks, and he’s taking up the Term Sheet mantle while I’m gone. And as a form of hazing, please spam him with all your story ideas. Here’s his email: leo.schwartz@fortune.com.
Leo will see you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS
- Dash0, a New York City-based OpenTelemetry-native observability platform, raised $9.5 million in seed funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Dig Ventures and angel investors.
- Xavveo, a Berlin-based autonomous vehicle sensor technology developer, raised $8.6 million in seed funding. Vsquared Ventures and imec.xpand led the round and were joined by angel investors.
- Quanscient, a Tampere, Finland-based quantum algorithm developer, raised €5.2 million ($5.7 million) in funding. Crowberry Capital led the round and was joined by Speen Holding and existing investors Maki.vc and First Fellow.
- Symbiotic Security, a New York City-based software development security platform, raised $3 million in pre-seed funding from Lerer Hippeau, Axeleo Capital, Factorial Capital, and others.
- Corgea, a San Francisco-based AI-driven vulnerability detection and remediation platform, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Shorooq Partners led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, Propeller, Decacorn Capital, Unbound Ventures, and angel investors.
EXITS
- J.C. Flowers agreed to acquire Pepper Advantage, a London-based credit management firm, from Pepper Global. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Miura Partners agreed to acquire HealthTech BioActives, a Barcelona-based citrus flavonoids and vitamin B12 developer, from The Riverside Company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OTHER
- BC Partners Credit acquired Runway Growth Capital, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based growth loans provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Patchwork Health acquired L2P, a London-based medical appraisal software and job-planning software provider for the healthcare industry. Financial terms were not disclosed.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
- Capital Dynamics, a Zug, Switzerland-based asset management firm, raised approximately $1.1 billion for its sixth fund focused on secondary investments.
PEOPLE
- a16z, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital firm, added Brian Roberts and Andy McCall as partners. Previously, Roberts was at Splunk and McCall was at Samsara.
