Capitalizing on the rise of artificial intelligence, Robinhood is preparing its second IPO for its retail venture

Just two months after listing its first mutual fund on the stock market, Robinhood is preparing to launch a second fund. The company has ft. a Secret registration For RVII, it is a standard regulatory step that allows it to work through the approval process before making details public.

ShLike her first fund, which she currently owns stakes in 10 late-stage companies — Airwallex, Boom, Databricks, ElevenLabs, Mercor, OpenAI, Ora, Ramp, Revolut, Stripe – RVII will cast a wider net, by investing in growth-stage and early-stage startups. It’s a useful distinction, since early-stage startups are younger and carry more risk but also offer the potential for greater returns.

The fundraising goal for RVII has not yet been determined, the company said in a statement Blog post. For its inaugural fund, Robinhood sought to raise $1 billion but ultimately failed Several hundred million short From this goal.

Despite the shortfall, the first fund performed strongly. RVI — the index of Robinhood’s first fund, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) — debuted on the NYSE at $21 a share in early March, and has more than doubled since then, closing Monday at $43.69. Market enthusiasm for the AI ​​prospects of the fund’s core startups likely drove the stock price higher.

The premise behind both funds addresses a long-standing gap in who can invest in startups. Under federal rules, only “accredited” investors — those with a net worth exceeding $1 million or an annual income of more than $200,000 — can put money into private companies. This has historically kept ordinary investors away from the early, most profitable stages of a company’s growth. RVI and now RVII are designed to change that, allowing anyone to invest in a range of private startups through a regular brokerage account.

“You can think of (Robinhood Ventures) as a publicly traded venture capital firm with daily liquidity. There are no accreditation 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 liquidity means that stocks can be bought or sold on any day the market is open, unlike traditional venture capital funds, where capital is held for years. Not carrying funds means Robinhood doesn’t take a percentage of investment profits, as traditional venture firms typically do.

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

Tenev’s long-term vision goes even further. “The aspiration is, if you’re a company raising a seed round and a Series A round — so, just the seed capital — retail should be a big part of that round, like it is now in the public markets,” Tenev said. He said at the conference. “And we have to let those people get in on the ground floor, so they can actually take advantage of this potential upside that is increasingly happening in private markets.”

If this vision takes hold, it could radically change how startups raise their early capital, with retail investors ultimately sitting alongside venture companies, including in early rounds, where the greatest returns are often made, and a lot of money is lost as well.