Office address: 85 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Website: robinhood.com
Year established: 2013
Company type: financial services
Employees: 2,300+
Expertise: retail brokerage, stock trading, ETF trading, options trading, cryptocurrency trading, portfolio management, cash management, debit card services, futures trading, financial technology, investment education
Parent company: Robinhood Markets, Inc.
Key people: Vlad Tenev (CEO), Stephanie Guild (chief investment officer), Matt Billings (president), Dan Gallagher (chief legal officer), Steve Quirk (chief brokerage officer), Jason Warnick (CFO), Johann Kerbrat (SVP)
Financing status: corporation
Robinhood provides commission-free trading for stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies to more than 26.7 million customers. The company operates from Menlo Park and employs 2,300 people. It is recognized for its user-friendly platform and a customer base that is mostly millennials and Gen Z.
Robinhood started in 2013 when Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev, two Stanford graduates, saw a gap in the market. They noticed that big Wall Street firms traded for almost nothing, while regular people paid high commissions. This inspired them to build a platform that would let anyone invest without paying those fees.
The founders moved back to California and raised money to build their app. They created buzz by setting up a waitlist, and over one million people signed up before the app launched in 2014. Robinhood’s simple design and no-commission trades quickly caught the attention of younger investors.
The company won an Apple Design award in 2015, which helped boost its reputation. By 2019, the company reached a $7.6 billion valuation and had millions of users. Major brokerages soon followed Robinhood’s lead by dropping their own trading fees.
Robinhood added features like fractional shares and early access to cryptocurrency trading. The firm expanded to the UK in 2024 and launched margin trading with new safety measures. In 2025, it introduced Robinhood Social, a platform for users to share trades and follow public figures.
Robinhood offers a range of products designed to make investing simple and accessible for individuals. The platform covers trading, retirement, and educational resources:
Robinhood is also known for its easy-to-use app and website, which make investing simple for all experience levels. The platform provides real-time updates and helpful educational content.
Robinhood states that its mission is to make finance open to everyone, highlighting the coming $124 trillion wealth transfer. The firm describes its culture as fast-paced and focused on ambitious goals. It values these principles:
According to the company, employees are expected to take on challenging work and learn quickly. In return, Robinhood offers these benefits:
Robinhood reports that ESG programs support transparency and long-term impact for its business and customers. In 2025, about 50 percent of new investors identified as first-time users, and 75 percent as millennials or Gen Z. It highlights offsetting 1,634 metric tonnes of Scope 2 emissions and purchasing 6,550 megawatt-hours of Green-e wind energy
Vlad Tenev is the CEO and chair of Robinhood Markets, leading the company and its board. He aims to democratize finance for all and believes tokenization and blockchain technology will transform the industry. Before this, Tenev co-founded two finance firms in New York City. He holds math degrees from Stanford and UCLA and has several FINRA licenses.
The leadership team at Robinhood oversees key areas of the company’s growth and innovation:
Robinhood’s leadership team works to deliver new products and value for today’s investors. They focus on putting customers first and adapting to changing market needs.
In August 2025, Robinhood’s stock was up 440 percent over the previous year as it moved into RIA custody and rolled out new AI features. The company announced a referral program with TradePMR and launched prediction markets for sports, aiming to reach more advisors and investors. These actions support Robinhood’s future growth and strengthen its position with a broad, younger client base.
In launching Robinhood Social, the company aims to connect investors and increase transparency. This new feature lets users share trades, discuss strategies, and follow the moves of public figures in real time. While the rollout was met with some industry caution, Robinhood looks to engage its large, young user base and shape how people interact with investing
The same week that Finra levied a record $70 million penalty against the online trading app, Robinhood filed for an IPO Thursday, becoming one of the year's most high-profile listings.
The online trading platform will pay a $57 million fine and $12.6 million in restitution to settle a series of alleged failures, from tech outages to misleading information; it is the largest financial penalty ever ordered by Finra.
The registration application known as Form U4 asks an applicant for a variety of information, from employment history to whether he or she has been convicted of or charged with a felony.
Robinhood's growing cryptocurrency business, which now allows customers to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum and even Dogecoin, has drawn questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission, a source says.
This month's #AdviserTech roundup includes a fundraising round by lead generation service Zoe Financial, as well as news about Tifin Group, Altruist, Vice and InvestCloud.
Wall Street’s top regulator is calling for a broad-based review of the rules that underpin trading in the U.S. equities.
The broker-dealer's chairman, Thomas Peterffy, says it plans to offer trading services 'by the end of the summer' in response to customer demand.
The internet outages occurred after servers from content-delivery network Fastly Inc. went down, affecting Amazon, Twitter, PayPal, Spotify, Twitch and CNN, among others.
Investors are curious about crypto and meme stocks, but most advisers say that clients do not understand the volatility of these investments.
The online trading app sued to overturn the state's fiduciary rule after Massachusetts accused Robinhood of manipulating customers.
The Wealth Advisory Institute will include content from more than a dozen other major asset managers.
In the first quarter, a total of 86 deals took place, and the wealthtech sector already has outpaced 2020’s year-end total funding of $5.2 billion.
The filing will give potential investors their first comprehensive look at Robinhood's financials and the risks associated with the stock.
Teens will be able to trade U.S.-listed stocks, Fidelity mutual funds and most exchange-traded funds, with no account fees or commissions.
The key issue, as Gensler put it, is how the SEC continues to ensure that markets work for everyday investors when new technologies change the face of finance.
