Ben Margot/AP
Robinhood cofounders Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev,
- Robinhood is reportedly raising new funds at a valuation of around $8 billion.
- According to anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg, the stock-trading startup is raising roughly $250 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital.
- The Robinhood app experienced multiple outages in March amid widespread market uncertainty caused by the coronavirus - with many Robinhood users unable to access it.
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The stock-trading app beloved by millennials is reportedly raising new funds at a valuation of around $8 billion.
According to anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg, Robinhood is raising roughly $250 million in a round led by major Silicon Valley-based VC firm Sequoia Capital.
It's likely the fresh funds - or at least some of them - will go towards addressing infrastructure problems with Robinhood's app.
The app experienced multiple technical problems in early March amid widespread market uncertainty caused by the coronavirus, including three major outages within the space of a week.
This caused Robinhood users to be locked out of the Robinhood app just as global markets were undergoing their biggest rally in 12 years. One Florida-based Robinhood user even filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of himself and other clients.
In a blog post at the time, Robinhood's cofounders Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev blamed "stress to its infrastructure" from an "unprecedented load," and vowed to invest further in adding more redundancies to its infrastructure.
"Multiple factors contributed to the unprecedented load that ultimately led to the outages. The factors included, among others, highly volatile and historic market conditions; record volume; and record account sign-ups," they added, while admitting that further, brief outages were possible.
Robinhood and Sequoia Capital did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.
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