Robinhood Markets

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 app is available in the App Store since December 2014.[5][6]

History

Robinhood cofounders Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt were roommates and classmates at Stanford.[7] After graduating, the two math and physics majors built high-frequency trading platforms for financial institutions in New York City.[7][8] 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.[9]

Reception

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][8][10][11] In under 30 days, Robinhood reached 100,000 signups for its waiting list.[12] In mid-to-late February, co-founders Baiju Bhatt and Vladimir Tenev were on CNBC and Bloomberg TV.[13][14]

As of September 2014, Robinhood's waiting list had reached 500,000 people.[6] Fifty percent of users who have made a trade use the app daily and 90 percent come back to the app weekly.[15]

As of January 2015, approximately 150.000 people are invited to create an account. 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.[16]

Products

The core of Robinhood’s product is a brokerage mobile app for iOS devices.[17] The app allows users to buy and sell stocks on U.S. exchanges with zero commissions. As of July 2014, Robinhood is the only major brokerage to offer $0 trading commissions for U.S. listed stocks as well as $0 account minimums.[18]

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).[19]

Mission

Robinhood's mission is to make investing accessible to "young people," and 80 percent of its beta users are under 30.[15]

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[15]

Tenev has added that trading stocks “should be as easy as summoning a ride on Uber or posting a picture to Instagram.”[6]

Funding

Robinhood received $3 million in seed capital from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, IT Ventures, Social Leverage, and Elefund with several angels.[20]

The company announced it had raised an additional $13 million in Series A funding in September 2014.[15] Jan Hammer of Index Ventures led the round and joined the Robinhood board.[15] 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.[15]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Robinhood.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-09-24.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 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. ↑ 3.0 3.1 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. ↑ https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/robinhood-$0-commission-stock/id938003185?mt=8
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Wohlsen, Marcus (23 September 2014). "FOLLOW WIRED Twitter Facebook RSS New App Wants to Make Trading Stocks as Easy as Posting Selfies". Wired.com (Wired). Retrieved 26 September 2014.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Forget $10 Trades, Meet Robinhood: New Brokerage Targets Millennials With Little Cash". Forbes. 2014-02-26. Retrieved 2014-04-07.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "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.
  9. ↑ "Robinhood: A Zero Commission Stock Brokerage". Bloomberg. 2014-02-20. Retrieved 2014-04-07.
  10. ↑ "Robinhood Opens Investing Doors to Wall Street's 'Hood". TheStreet.com. 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2014-02-14.
  11. ↑ "Robinhood’s pitch to millennials: free stock trading". VentureBeat.com. 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2014-02-14.
  12. ↑ Robinhood on twitter.com
  13. ↑ "Robinhood, a new app, offers free stock trades". CNBC.com. 2014-02-27. Retrieved 2014-02-14.
  14. ↑ "Robinhood: A Zero Commission Stock Brokerage". BloombergTV. 2014-02-20. Retrieved 2014-02-14.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 Constine, Josh (23 September 2014). "Robinhood Raises $13M To Democratize Stock Market With Zero-Commission Trading App". TechCrunch.com (TechCrunch). Retrieved 26 September 2014.
  16. ↑ "Young, Poor and Looking to Invest? Robinhood Is the App for That". Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  17. ↑ "Zero-Commission Stock Trading App RobinHood Kicks Off Private Beta". TechCrunch.com. 2014-02-27. Retrieved 2014-02-14.
  18. ↑ "Zero-Commission Stock Trading App RobinHood Kicks Off Private Beta". TechCrunch.com. 2014-02-27. Retrieved 2014-02-14.
  19. ↑ Touryalai, Halah (26 February 2014). "Forget $10 Trades, Meet Robinhood: New Brokerage Targets Millennials With Little Cash". Forbes (Forbes). Retrieved 26 September 2014.
  20. ↑

External links