5c(c) Capital Targets $35M Fund to Back Prediction Market Infrastructure Startups

Markets don’t whisper before they move. They leak intent through the builders paying attention, the ones wiring up the pipes while everyone else argues about the water. 5c(c) Capital just stepped into that pocket with a $35M target for its maiden fund, planted squarely in the world of prediction markets. Not dabbling, not experimenting, but committing to the infrastructure layer where the real leverage lives. New York roots, sharp thesis, and a name pulled straight from the Commodity Exchange Act. Section 5c(c). New contracts, new rules. Subtle, but not quiet.

Adhi Rajaprabhakaran doesn’t come at this like a tourist. Founder, General Partner, and someone who’s actually traded inside the machine at Kalshi. You can tell when a fund is built by people who’ve felt liquidity dry up in real time versus those who just read about it in a deck. Different instincts. Different timing. Alongside him, Noah Zingler-Sternig, co-founder and former head of operations at Kalshi, brings the wiring diagram perspective. The kind that knows where systems break before they scale.

And then you look at who’s writing checks. Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi. Shayne Coplan, CEO of Polymarket. Two leaders from opposite ends of the same arena, both betting on the picks and shovels behind the game. That’s not casual alignment. That’s a signal that the layer beneath the headlines is where the next build cycle is heating up.

The play here isn’t launching another exchange and hoping for volume. It’s backing the ecosystem that makes those markets actually function. Market makers, index design, data rails, tooling. The stuff nobody tweets about until it’s the only thing that matters. Around 20 companies over the next 2 years, if the plan holds. Tight portfolio, high conviction, no wasted motion.

There’s a lesson sitting in plain sight. The founders didn’t chase a trend. They followed the 2nd and 3rd order effects of something they already helped build. When you understand where friction lives, you don’t need to guess where capital should go. You place it where friction turns into margin.

Prediction markets have always had a reputation problem. Too early, too weird, too regulatory. But the tone shifts when serious operators start funding the infrastructure instead of debating the concept. That’s when an idea stops being a conversation and starts becoming an asset class people can’t ignore.

5c(c) Capital isn’t trying to be loud. It’s trying to be right, early, and positioned where outcomes get priced before the rest of the market even realizes there was a question worth asking.