Robinhood Valued At $11.2B After Series G Fundraising Round

Robinhood, a retail trading platform that offers investors commission-free stock, ETF and options trading and high-yield savings accounts, announced a $200-million Series G funding round Monday at an $11.2-billion valuation that was led by D1 Capital Partners.

What Happened: As part of its vision to further democratize access to the U.S. financial system, Robinhood raised new funding to broaden the breadth of its investing and wealth management tools.

Robinhood is hiring hundreds of financial service representatives in Southlake, Texas and Tempe, Arizona, the company said Monday. 

"Across all of our locations, we’re adding new team members to help us reduce response times, build more self-service tools and enhance our informational and educational tools."

The development comes after Robinhood posted a 250% increase in average unique daily visitors to its Learn resources since January. The company also said it saw large increases in its newsletters and podcast viewership.

“Keeping up to date on market news can also help people feel empowered. Robinhood Snacks, our newsletter and podcast delivering free, digestible, and easy to understand financial news, has nearly 2 million monthly active podcast listeners, and more than 20 million people subscribe to the weekly newsletter,” according to Robinhood. 

Why It Matters: Alongside recent market volatility, traders who sheltered at home due to COVID-19 searched for ways to maintain engagement with the outside world, helping to fuel Robinhood's over 3 million new account openings since the beginning of 2020.

In response to recent growth, the company said it will enhance its platform, adding stability to its technology and depth to education, helping investors better act on market opportunities.

“We believe investing at its core is a democratic concept — it allows people to take part in the success of a company or sector they believe in. With our latest round of funding, we’ll continue empowering people in their financial lives and enabling a more democratic financial system,” according to Robinhood. 

Photo courtesy of Robinhood.