Courtesy of Robinhood
Robinhood, whose millennial-friendly mobile app lets users buy and sell public stocks without trading fees, on Wednesday confirmed that it has raised $110 million in new funding. The Silicon Valley company has over two million users and is now valued at $1.3 billion, confirming earlier media reports.
Inflection point: Interest from investors really picked up following the launch of its paid service—Robinhood Gold—last year, which currently accounts for half of the trading volume, co-founder Baiju Bhatt told Axios. Rumors of the company's fundraising began to circulate late last year, although Bhatt says this latest round was done about a month ago.
International halt: Despite announcing plans to expand internationally a couple of years ago, beginning with Australia, Robinhood reversed course due to regulatory uncertainty and is currently focused on its U.S. market. It even recently pulled out of China, where last year it made its service available to consumers.
The deal: Yuri Milner's DST Global led the round. Others investors include Greenoaks Capital, Thrive Capital, Index Ventures, NEA, and Ribbit Capital. Robinhood has now raised a total of $176 million.