US-based online share trading service Robinhood, which counts entertainment agency Roc Nation and internet and technology group Alphabet as investors, is looking to raise about $250m, Bloomberg reported today
Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is in talks to lead the round, according to people familiar with the matter, who said it would value Robinhood at about $8bn pre-money, up from the $7.6bn valuation at which it last raised funding.
Robinhood runs an online platform that enables users to buy and sell shares in public companies without paying commission.
The platform operates as a freemium service and reached 10 million users in December 2019, but has seen activity markedly increase since the coronavirus-related market crash last month, despite the app falling victim to several outages. It has raised at least $913m in funding so far.
The company’s most recent funding came when it closed its series D round at $373m in October 2019 with $50m from investment firm DST Global. The first tranche featured DST Global, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital and Ribbit Capital.
GV, the Alphabet subsidiary then known as Google Ventures, joined Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Rothenberg Ventures and assorted angel investors for Robinhood’s $3m seed round in 2013.
Roc Nation’s Arrive subsidiary invested an undisclosed amount in Robinhood in early 2018, before another Alphabet unit, CapitalG, joined DST Global, NEA, Sequoia, Thrive Capital, Iconiq Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for a $363m series D round later that year.
The round valued Robinhood at $5.6bn and DST Global, Thrive Capital and NEA took part as existing backers. The company’s other investors include Greenoaks Capital, Queensbridge Venture Partners, Social Leverage and Vaizra Investments.
