Robinhood Raises $323M On $7.6B Valuation

Stock trading app Robinhood has announced a $323 million Series E financing round, which brings the company’s valuation to $7.6 billion.

“We’ll use the funding to keep pursuing our mission of democratizing finance for all,” the company wrote in a blog post.

The funding round was led by DST Global, with participation from investors including Ribbit Capital, NEA, Sequoia, and Thrive Capital. Robinhood has raised more than $860 million in venture capital funding to date.

Robinhood’s co-CEOs Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev have reportedly said an initial public offering is the company’s future, but that it’s focus for the time being is on disrupting other areas of finance. It recently applied for a national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which will enable it to offer banking products. “Robinhood’s goal is to be able to offer its customers a full suite of financial products to serve their needs,” a company spokesman said in May.

It’s been reported that FIS, Fiserv or Infosys will be tapped to provide the processing software for the mobile bank if Robinhood receives approval.

In addition, Robinhood brought on the CEO of Wedbush Bank and Merchants Bank of California, Scott Racusin, to head up its banking efforts. This is the firm’s second attempt to enter the banking market after missteps caused the company to retreat late last year. After garnering a lot of attention for launching a checking and savings product with 3 percent interest, it was forced to pull the offer days later when the company ran into trouble with regulators and was forced to remove all material on the product from its website.

Robinhood has been enjoying fast-paced growth thanks in large part to the fact that its stock trading app is free. In 2018 its user base jumped from 4 million during the summer to 6 million by late 2018.