Robinhood, the stock trading app, announced Tuesday that it has filed a draft registration to go public and has joined a wave of financial technology companies planning a listing or raising new funding.
The exact time or price of the offer has not been determined. Private market investors have valued Robinhood at around $ 12 billion, and some have speculated that the IPO could top $ 20 billion. It is working with Goldman Sachs on its offering, said a person familiar with the company.
Robinhood used a process known as confidential filing that allows it to keep some details secret at the start of the IPO.
Financial technology companies were booming. Coinbase, a cryptocurrency start-up, is expected to list its shares in the coming weeks. Investors estimate the value could be as high as $ 100 billion. Stripe, a start-up that provides payment processing services, raised $ 95 billion in funding this month, making it the most valuable start-up in the United States.
Robinhood started making plans to go public last year after its growth increased in the pandemic and some people used their stimulus checks for daily trading.
However, those plans were halted in January when a group of online traders jointly banned the stock prices of so-called “meme stocks” like GameStop, causing short sellers to lose money and forcing the exchanges to trade some To discontinue stocks.
In the midst of the frenzy, Robinhood restricted trading in some stocks, outraged many of its users, and collected nearly 50 lawsuits and multiple regulatory investigations. Vlad Tenev, the company’s executive director, was asked to testify before Congress about the hype and Robinhood’s role in it.
Despite the anger, the GameStop incident boosted Robinhood’s notoriety and resulted in more downloads of its app, which is popular as there are no fees for trading stocks. Robinhood has been criticized for making day trading a playful game where investors don’t always understand the risk they are taking.
Private investors have stood by the Menlo Park, California-based company. During the rush, Robinhood raised two emergency funding rounds totaling $ 4.4 billion in just a few days.