Robinhood has officially raised its latest round of funding, bringing in $110 million at a $1.3 billion valuation. The investment is led by DST Global and includes participation from new investors Greenoaks Capital and Thrive Capital, along with previous investors Index Ventures, NEA, and Ribbit Capital. The company said that it will use the funds to increase hiring and develop new products around its stock trading app, which has more than 2 million users.
Above: Robinhood user growth
Robinhood — which launched two years ago — aims to make it easier for anyone to buy and trade stocks. Users can invest in U.S. stocks and ETFs commission-free, which has been particularly appealing to those who may not be wealthy but still wish to try their hand at investing. The company’s premium service, Robinhood Gold, is believed to have good traction, with signup increasing 17 percent monthly and 50 percent of trading volume in 2017 coming from these accounts.
Company cofounder Baiju Bhatt told VentureBeat: “We’ve seen incredible growth since our launch just over two years ago, and we are the fastest-growing brokerage ever. There’s clearly an appetite for accessible ways to participate in the American financial markets.”
This Series C round of fundraising comes nearly two years after Robinhood picked up its last investment of $50 million. Bhatt declined to state whether this round was oversubscribed but acknowledged that it was more of an opportunistic round. “This was a good opportunity for us to add to our capital and continue to fuel our growth over the next few years, but it was not driven by a particular capital need.”
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While there are plans to develop additional products for customers, Robinhood declined to cite specifics, although Bhatt did say: “We have several new products on the horizon, including web. Our work is heavily design and research driven, so we’re committed to getting it right. We have an aggressive product roadmap planned, and you’ll see Robinhood expand further into financial services in the future.”
Reports of Robinhood’s $1.3 billion valuation were first revealed by Fortune and TechCrunch last month. To date, the company has raised over $176 million.
