- Robinhood, the zero-fee stock trading app that's popular among millennials, confirmed its Series D funding round of $363 million.
- The round places the company's worth at $5.6 billion.
- Robinhood says it will use the money to snag new talent, offer more financial service options (among them, its rollout of the company's cryptocurrency trading platform), and spearhead product growth.
In March, the Wall Street Journal reported that commission-free stock trading company Robinhood could be valued in excess of $5 billion. The Journal's unnamed sources said the company was currently raising an estimated $350 million funding round, led by Robinhood's longtime investor, the Russian investment firm DST.
Now, Robinhood is confirming both the size of the Series D funding round at $363 million and the company's current valuation at $5.6 billion, making the five-year-old startup a formidable contender in the fintech stock-trading market.
It's a remarkable growth for the young company, which, in its first attempt to secure funding, was rejected 75 times.
The round brought in new investors like Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Iconiq, and Capital G as well, Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev told Business Insider. Tenev said Robinhood will use the money to launch new products, scale the product's growth, and snag new talent. Most recently, Robinhood brought on Greylock investor Josh Elman as its VP of product.
"We're expanding our product suite so that we can offer many financial services at the lowest possible price," said Tenev.
Robinhood's primary offering is a zero-fees trading app that's taken off among millennials. Currently, the company is rolling out a cryptocurrency trading platform, where users in 10 US states can currently trade in fiat currencies commission-free for digital currencies like bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin.
Tenev declined to share the number of users who are trading in cryptocurrencies through Robinhood's app, but said that there was a "huge demand" for the service.
"We're working as fast as we can," said Tenev.
Like its stock-trading options, Robinhood's cryptocurrency trading platform is also commission-free. Tenev said Robinhood will be buckling down on its cryptocurrency offerings in the forthcoming months.
"Cryptocurrency platforms have exorbitant fees and they're hard to use," said Tenev. "I think it's fair to say that our goal is to build the best product on the market, where users can have all of their investments in one place."
