Robinhood Raises $363M in Series D Round to Create ‘Largest Crypto Platform’

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by Bhushan Akolkar · 3 min read
Robinhood Raises $363M in Series D Round to Create ‘Largest Crypto Platform’
Photo: Robinhood

Robinhood raises the competition bar in the crypto-trading space with its valuations touching a whopping $5.6 billion after the latest round of funding.

Popular cryptocurrency trading app Robinhood is seen making some inroads giving some serious competition to many of the established players in this segment. In the last one year, Robinhood has successfully managed to double its user base to 4 million registered users as on date. In the latest Series D funding round, Robinhood has managed to add $343 million to its pool, taking its valuations to a whopping $5.6 billion.

In just a year’s time, the valuations of Robinhood have quadrupled making it as the second most valuable private fintech startup in the U.S. In an official statement, the company said:

“At Robinhood, we’re guided by the belief that America’s financial system should work for everyone – not only the wealthy. Our platform has also grown significantly, reaching over four million users, cementing Robinhood Financial as the fastest-growing brokerage ever.”

Robinhood, a popular stock-trading app among millennials, shook several crypto exchange operators earlier this year by launching its zero fee cryptocurrency trading app in five states across the United States. The company, however, is pushing to expand its operations to more states in a bid to make cryptocurrency trading accessible to a wider audience.

The latest round of funding, which was led by DST Global, saw some of the very prominent players and venture capital firms investing in Robinhood. The list of participants includes giants like Sequoia, Google’s venture capital fund Capital G,Kleiner Perkins, and Iconiq.

In a talk with Fortune, Baiju Bhatt, Robinhood’s co-founder and co-CEO said:

“I think the real ‘X factor’ that made investors even more excited about being a part of Robinhood was seeing our ability to, with a very, very limited workforce, to ship three brand new products in these last six months, while maintaining and growing one of the largest brokerages in the U.S.”

Robinhood is having a bold expansion plan in the crypto trading business where, according to Bhatt, they expect by the end of the year to be either the largest or one of the largest crypto platforms out there. “But we also really feel we’ll have the absolute best experience for investing in crypto as well—from having a large variety of coins available to a more favorable cost structure—mainly no commissions—to just quality of the product,” he added.

Currently, Robinhood’s crypto trading app allows users to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum while supporting the tracking of 16 different currencies. The company plans to provide trading facility for some more digital currencies, however, it didn’t explicitly mention when.

While commenting on the latest regulatory cloud hovering over the crypto market, especially when financial agencies like SEC and the CFTC are having strict scrutiny, Bhatt expressed absolute confidence and said that they are all ok with it.

“Robinhood’s product cadence has been very impressive. We invested because we think that Robinhood has the potential to bring its low-cost and user-first approach to revolutionize large portions of financial services,” said Andrew Reed, a partner at Sequoia Capital.

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