E-Paper
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan used company money for private jet trips, rent: report
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan used company funds to pay for private jet flights, his apartment rent and other personal expenses, a Bloomberg report has alleged.
Prefer HTon Google
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan used company funds to pay for private jet flights, his apartment rent and other personal expenses, a Bloomberg report has alleged. According to the report, the 28-year-old’s alleged embezzlement came to light when Founders Fund considered investing in Polymarket in 2025.
Founders Fund is an American venture capital fund established by Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek.
When the fund discovered that Coplan had been using Polymarket funds for personal expenses, it insisted that the prediction-market startup clean up its finances. It also insisted that the founder of Polymarket repay the money he had used.
Polymarket CEO repays money
The Bloomberg report stated that Shayne Coplan repaid the money, thereby securing an investment from Founders Fund. The investment valued Polymarket at $1.2 billion.
A spokesperson for Polymarket said the flights were for business purposes and that Coplan “proactively” disclosed the expenses to investors, Bloomberg said.
Coplan was 22 when he founded Polymarket in June 2020. By 2024, Polymarket had raised about $70 million from investors, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Dragonfly Capital and, of course, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.
Investor rubbishes report
Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly, took to social media to slam the report and voice his support for Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan.
“We're one of the largest early investors in Polymarket, and this story that Shayne was "caught red-handed" using company money is just a flat out garbage hit piece,” he said.
Qureshi said that Coplan did not misuse company funds for personal gain. Instead, he was not taking a salary when he started the company. He later initiated the accounting and repayment process himself, rather than being caught by investors, and repaid the company in full before starting a regular salary.
(Also read: Who is Shayne Coplan? Polymarket CEO’s house raided by FBI after betting platform predicts Trump win)
“Shayne wasn't taking a salary. He was 21 when he started Polymarket, he was living hand-to-mouth running the company out of his apartment, barely making ends meet when he was raising his seed round,” Qureshi revealed in his X post.
“Shayne disclosed every dollar he spent, which turned out to annualize to about a software engineer's salary. That's including the flights, none of which were personal flights. Plus, SHAYNE STARTED the accounting and payback process, no one “found” it. In aggregate, it was nothing that an investor would balk at. He paid it back to the company in full, and then got on a normal salary like everyone else,” he added.
According to Fortune, Dragonfly backed Polymarket’s Series B funding round. Dragonfly also participated in Polymarket’s $150 million funding round announced in October 2025, alongside investors including Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital and Blockchain Capital.
