Robinhood Launching Private Fund for Retail Investors

Robinhood is introducing a fund designed to expand retail investors’ access to private markets.

The trading platform announced Monday (Sept. 15) that it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to put in motion the process to advance public shares of the fund, known as Robinhood Ventures Fund I.

“For decades, wealthy people and institutions have invested in private companies while retail investors have been unfairly locked out,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a news release. “With Robinhood Ventures, everyday people will be able to invest in opportunities once reserved for the elite.”

The announcement comes on the heels of Robinhood’s recent entry into the tokenized equities space in Europe, centered around private companies OpenAI and SpaceX. This offering drew criticism from OpenAI, and the attention of regulators in Europe.

This new fund, the company said, will focus on investing in “a concentrated portfolio of private companies at the frontiers of their respective industries.” Assuming the company gets the SEC’s go-ahead, shares of the fund will be traded under the symbol RVI on the New York Stock Exchange, available to retail investors through brokerages such as Robinhood.

The news comes 10 days after Robinhood clenched a spot on the S&P 500 and five days after the company debuted a social media feature for its app.

Founded in 2013, Robinhood has made a name for itself as a place for retail investors, and has since ventured into several other offerings, including cryptocurrencies. The company said earlier this year that transaction-based revenues had risen 77% year over year, a trend fueled chiefly by its crypto business.

More recently, the company’s second quarter earnings showed Robinhood “pivoting sharply from its roots in commission-free retail trading toward a diversified, multilane financial platform,” as PYMNTS wrote in late July.

Those earnings, the report added, showcased Robinhood’s ability to scale its crypto ambitions. Revenues from crypto-related products soared 98% year over year to $160 million, while total notional crypto trading volumes reached $35 billion.

“Much of that surge can be attributed to the June acquisition of Bitstamp, a legacy exchange with deep roots in Europe and over 50 regulatory licenses across major jurisdictions,” PYMNTS added. “Notably, $7 billion in Q2 crypto volume came from Bitstamp alone, indicating rapid onboarding of its institutional client base.”

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