Robinhood Markets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Robinhood Markets Inc.
Headquarters Palo Alto, California
Key people Baiju Bhatt (Co-Founder)
Vladimir Tenev (Co-Founder)
Nate Rodland (COO)
Industry Technology
Website www.robinhood.com
Alexa rank positive decrease 34,723 (September 2014)[1]
Launched April 18, 2013 in Palo Alto, California

Robinhood Markets Inc. is a U.S. based financial services company headquartered in Palo Alto, California.[2] The Robinhood iOS app allows individuals to invest in publicly traded companies and exchange-traded funds listed on U.S. exchanges without paying a commission.[3][4] The company released its iPhone app in December 2014 and its Apple Watch app in April 2015.[5][6] Robinhood for Android is in beta as of July, 2015. [7]


History[edit]

Robinhood cofounders Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt were roommates and classmates at Stanford.[8][not in citation given] After graduating, the two math and physics majors built high-frequency trading platforms for financial institutions in New York City.[8][9] Tenev and Bhatt realized that high-frequency traders and electronic trading firms pay effectively nothing to place trades on the market. This inspired Tenev and Bhatt to bring existing technology to the retail brokerage market with Robinhood.[10]

Reception[edit]

Robinhood launched out of stealth on the popular crowdsourced technology news website Hacker News, leading to articles about the company in TechCrunch, PandoDaily, VentureBeat, TheStreet and others.[3][9][11][12] In under 30 days, Robinhood reached 100,000 signups for its waiting list.[13] In mid-to-late February, co-founders Baiju Bhatt and Vladimir Tenev were on CNBC and Bloomberg TV.[14][15]

As of September 2014, Robinhood's waiting list had reached 500,000 people.[16] Fifty percent of users who have made a trade use the app daily and 90 percent come back to the app weekly.[17]

In March 2015, the company announced the remaining people from the waitlist could create accounts and any U.S. residents, 18 and older, could apply for an account.[18]

80% of current customers of Robinhood belong to the demographic "millennials" (people between the ages 18 and 29, there are around 90 million of them in the U.S) and the current average customer age of Robinhood is 26.[19]

Robinhood has received waves of media coverage, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, TIME, CNBC, CNNMoney, Re/code, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, WIRED, Fast Company, Fortune, Inc, Business Insider, Mashable, Quartz, BuzzFeed, MarketWatch, The Street, and many more.

Robinhood’s cofounders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt regularly appear on business television shows, including Bloomberg West, CNBC, CNN, and Fox Business News.

Products[edit]

Robinhood is a mobile-first (iPhone and Apple Watch) stock brokerage, allowing customers to buy and sell stocks on U.S. exchanges with zero commissions. Robinhood for Android will be released in 2015.[20]

As of May 2015, Robinhood is the only major brokerage to offer $0 trading commissions for U.S. listed stocks as well as $0 account minimums.[21]

Robinhood is a FINRA-approved broker-dealer.[2] The company is also registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).[22]

Mission[edit]

Robinhood's mission is to make financial tools accessible to everyone and to inspire a new generation of investors. The company announced in May 2015 over 25% of their customers are first-time investors. [23]

Most stock brokerages out there have been around for 30 years, their interfaces are clumsy, and they’re targeting older professionals and active traders. They’re no place for first time investors and that’s one of the things we focus on. Making it accessible. Having it be mobile friendly. — Vladmir Tenev, co-founder[24]

Funding[edit]

Robinhood has raised a total of $66 million in venture capital funding.

Robinhood received $3 million in seed capital from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, IT Ventures, Social Leverage, and Elefund with several angels.[25]

The company announced it had raised an additional $13 million in Series A funding in September 2014.[26] Jan Hammer of Index Ventures led the round and joined the Robinhood board.[26] Also joining the round were Ribbit Capital; Howard Lindzon, co-founder of StockTwits and general partner at Social Leverage; Aaron Levie, founder of Box; Dave Morin, founder of Path; Jared Leto; Snoop Dogg; and Nasir Jones of QueensBridge Venture Partners.[26]

Robinhood raised an additional $50 million in Series B funding in May 2015, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Existing investors Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Social Leverage joined the round, along with new investor Vaizra Investments. As part of the financing, NEA General Partner Kittu Kolluri joined the Board of Directors.[27]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Robinhood.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-09-24. 
  2. ^ a b Gannes, Liz (23 September 2014). "With $13 Million, Robinhood Aims to Share the Stock-Trade Wealth". Re/code (Re/code). Retrieved 26 September 2014. 
  3. ^ a b Constine, Josh (2013-12-18). "Robinhood App Will Offer Zero-Commission Stock Trades Thanks To $3M Seed From Index And A16Z". TechCrunch.com. Retrieved 2014-02-27. 
  4. ^ "Robinhood Frequently Asked Questions". Robinhood.com. Retrieved 2013-06-27. 
  5. ^ http://www.wired.com/2014/12/stock-trading-touch-id-era-finally-arrived/
  6. ^ http://www.businessinsider.com/best-new-apple-watch-apps-i-should-download-first-2015-4
  7. ^ https://robinhood.com/android/beta/
  8. ^ a b "Forget $10 Trades, Meet Robinhood: New Brokerage Targets Millennials With Little Cash". Forbes. 2014-02-26. Retrieved 2014-04-07. 
  9. ^ a b "Robinhood gets $3M to take from Wall St. and give to Main St. with its mobile-first, zero-commission brokerage". PandoDaily.com. 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2014-02-14. 
  10. ^ "Robinhood: A Zero Commission Stock Brokerage". Bloomberg. 2014-02-20. Retrieved 2014-04-07. 
  11. ^ "Robinhood Opens Investing Doors to Wall Street's 'Hood". TheStreet.com. 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2014-02-14. 
  12. ^ "Robinhood’s pitch to millennials: free stock trading". VentureBeat.com. 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2014-02-14. 
  13. ^ Robinhood on twitter.com
  14. ^ "Robinhood, a new app, offers free stock trades". CNBC.com. 2014-02-27. Retrieved 2014-02-14. 
  15. ^ "Robinhood: A Zero Commission Stock Brokerage". BloombergTV. 2014-02-20. Retrieved 2014-02-14. 
  16. ^ http://www.wired.com/2014/09/new-app-aims-make-trading-stocks-easy-posting-selfies/
  17. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/23/robinhood-stock-app/
  18. ^ http://fortune.com/2015/03/12/robinhood-investing-app/
  19. ^ "Young, Poor and Looking to Invest? Robinhood Is the App for That". Retrieved 4 February 2015. 
  20. ^ http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/05/robinhood-investors-venture-capital-stock-trading.html
  21. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/07/free-stock-trades/
  22. ^ Touryalai, Halah (26 February 2014). "Forget $10 Trades, Meet Robinhood: New Brokerage Targets Millennials With Little Cash". Forbes (Forbes). Retrieved 26 September 2014. 
  23. ^ http://blog.robinhood.com/news/2015/5/4/onward
  24. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/07/free-stock-trades/
  25. ^ [1]
  26. ^ a b c Constine, Josh (23 September 2014). "Robinhood Raises $13M To Democratize Stock Market With Zero-Commission Trading App". TechCrunch.com (TechCrunch). Retrieved 26 September 2014. 
  27. ^ http://blog.robinhood.com/news/2015/5/4/onward

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robinhood_Markets&oldid=672494006"