Robinhood Markets Inc., or simply Robinhood, is a U.S.-based financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The company offers the Robinhood smartphone mobile app, which allows individuals to invest in publicly tradedcompanies and exchange-traded funds listed on U.S. stock exchanges without paying a commission. The company makes money from interest earned on customers’ cash balances and margin lending, and by selling order flow to high frequency trading firms.
After an April 2017 fundraising, Robinhood had a $1.3 billion valuation. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 that the company had closed another round of financing that valued the company at $5.6 billion.
Robinhood is offering a special promotion to its European users. Customers will get back 1% of the value of the tokens they deposit, returned as cryptocurrency.
This is not Robinhood’s first encounter with regulatory scrutiny. In May, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) notified Robinhood of its intent to file a lawsuit over alleged violations of federal securities laws.
