Robinhood Holds An IPO Roadshow Ahead Of Nasdaq Trading On July 29

What Happened: The online brokerage Robinhood held an IPO Roadshow on Saturday, July 24, instead of the traditional process of pitching itself to investors in closed-door meetings. The live streamed event included founder and CEO Vlad Tenev, co-founder Baiju Bhatt, Chief Financial Officer Jason Warnick, Chief Legal Officer Dan Gallagher, Chief Operating Officer Gretchen Howard, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Christina Smedley and Chief Product Officer Aparna Chennapragada.

Company officials said Robinhood will have four core priorities: Safety first, Participation is Power, Radical Customer Focus and First Principles Thinking. Robinhood CFO Jason Warnick said the company's revenue grew by 245% year-over-year in 2020, and 40% of monthly active users interact with the app daily.

COO Gretchen Howard said the company's headcount has increased from 289 on December 31, 2018 to approximately 2100 employees on March 31, 2021. She said Robinhood expects "rapid headcount growth to continue for the foreseeable future."

During the event's Q&A session Tenev said Robinhood plans to expand internationally and to become a "global company." He also addressed the growth of cryptocurrency investing, saying the company is providing extensive educational tools to help new investors become "empowered investors in the long term."

Why It's Important: Robinhood has seen massive growth with 18 million accounts in March of this year and 80 billion dollars in assest, up from 7.2 million accounts and $19.2 billion in assests in March of 2020. Robinhood officials said over half of their customers are first time investors.

The online brokerage has also attracted the attention of regulators. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority recently fined Robinhood a record $70 million over several outages the company experienced last year. 

What's Next: During the Robinhood IPO Roadshow, Tenev said the company plans to make Robinhood the “single money app of the future.” The company aims to trade on the Nasdaq July 29 under the ticker “HOOD." It plans to set share prices in a range of $38 to $42, which equals a potential valuation of approximately $35 billion.