Riding the AI ​​rally, Robinhood prepares for second IPO

Just two months after listing its first fund on the stock market, Robinhood is planning to launch again. The company has done it fallen a private registration for the RVII, a default feature that allows it to use the default mode before displaying the details.

Uas his first fund, which is currently involved Last 10 companies – Airwallex, Boom, Databricks, ElevenLabs, Mercor, OpenAI, Oura, Ramp, Revolut, and Stripe – RVII will cast a wider net, investing in growth and early stage. That’s an important distinction, because early stage startups tend to be smaller and carry more risk and offer the potential for higher returns.

RVII’s fundraising target has not been set, the company said in a statement blog post. At its opening fund, Robinhood sought to raise $1 billion but ultimately fell short several hundred million in short for that purpose.

Despite the deficit, the first fund has done very well. RVI – the ticker of Robinhood’s first fund, which trades on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) – made its debut on the NYSE at $ 21 a share at the beginning of March and since more than doubled, closing on Monday at $ 43.69. Market interest in the AI ​​prospects of the fund’s launch may have fueled the stock’s rise.

The rationale behind both of these funds addresses a long-standing gap in primary income earners. Under federal law, only “qualified” investors — those with more than $1 million in cash or annual revenues of more than $200,000 — can invest in private equity firms. This has shut out ordinary investors since the company was growing and very profitable. The RVI and now the RVII, were designed to change this, allowing anyone to use their personal start-up funds through a loan account.

“You can think of (Robinhood Ventures) as a publicly traded company and an everyday investment. There are no regulatory requirements and no carry,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a statement. interview at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference last week. Daily trading means that shares can be bought or sold every day after the market opens, unlike traditional VC funds, where funds are locked up for years. No carry means that Robinhood does not take a financial profit, as traditional companies do.

Over the past few years, valuable AI startups have gone from early bets to companies worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, and almost all of that appreciation has happened in private markets, out of reach of most investors.

Tenev’s long-term vision continues. “The desire is that, if you are a company that brings seed round with Series A – that is, initial capital – the sale should be a big part, as it is in the public markets,” Tenev. he said at the meeting. “And we have to let those people in on the ground, so they can benefit from the appreciation that’s happening in the private markets.”

If the vision takes hold, it can change the way startups get their first investment, where the salespeople are closer to the business companies, including in the old races, where the big returns are often made, the most money is lost, as well.