

Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Robinhood, one of the first and most popular zero-fee stock trading apps, announced it has raised $110 million in a Series C financing from DST Global, valuing the company at $1.3 billion.
Existing investors Index Ventures, NEA, and Ribbit Capital, as well as new investors Greenoaks Capital and Thrive Capital participated in the round. The total funding of Robinhood to date has reached $176 million. Robinhood plans on deploying the capital to accelerate expansion of its products and services.
“The team at Robinhood has built a transformational business in a short period of time,” said Kareem Zaki, investor at Thrive Capital. “The company’s growth and consumer adoption rate is incredibly impressive, and they’re just getting started.”
In its statement, Robinhood also said its premium trading service – Robinhood Gold – which offers margin, extended hours trading and instant deposits, is also experiencing rapid growth. Signups for Robinhood Gold are surging 17% month over month, and over 50% of the platform’s trading volume in 2017 derives from Robinhood Gold accounts, which start at $10 a month. The company also generates revenue from interest and order flow.
Robinhood offers trading in US stocks and ETFs and allows small retail investors to participate in the US stock market, which is usually inaccessible for them. The traditional stock brokers usually charge hefty commissions and have arbitrary account minimum requirements.
Robinhood was founded in 2013 in California by two Standford University math graduates Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev and launched towards the end of 2014.
Between the December 2014 launch and May 2015, Robinhood attracted hundreds of thousands of users, 25% of them being first-time investors, and generated transactions for over $500 million on its platform. According to more up-to-date information, the company recently surpassed two million active users and $50 billion in transaction volume.
In May 2015 Robinhood announced a $50 million round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Existing investors Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Social Leverage joined the round, along with new investor Vaizra Investments and brought the total funding of Robinhood to $66 million. Also in May 2015, Robinhood expanded to Australia and it is so far its first and only international market.