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
Rob Howland explains why the Great Wealth Transfer will reward RIAs who listen, educate, and guide families through complexity - not those who simply chase more assets.
Analysis finds scale and sweep‑balance edge position firms such as Schwab and LPL to benefit as AI boosts advisor capacity and trims costs.
While Robinhood fully embraces prediction markets, Schwab CEO Rick Wurster says he’s “absolutely open” to integrating trades on employment or inflation predictions instead of current markets dominated by sports events.
Proposed regulations outline who can open the accounts, when elections must be filed and how “responsible parties” would manage investments and rollovers.
In an increasingly crowded RIA referral market, TradePMR and Robinhood are banking on the app's young investor base to funnel Gen Z and millennials with at least $250,000 in investable assets to participating advisors.
The Boston-based investment giant’s latest snapshot shows strong gains in operating income, trading activity, and ETF assets.
Brokerage fintech DriveWealth will integrate with Kalshi's prediction markets, as a MrBeast employee was fined and suspended over insider trading on Kalshi.
April has already handled more than $1 billion in refunds this tax season, offering advisors the ability to model the tax impact of client decisions like large stock sales or Roth conversions.
New proposal would offer federal-style investing options and up to $1,000 in annual government matching for workers shut out of workplace plans.
Trade group urges regulators to loosen investment restrictions and clarify ERISA rules for new child savings vehicles.
Robinhood is bundling tax, estate planning and CFP support through third-party providers Vanilla and Taxfyle. "It’s a great strategic offering to start to change the mindset of Robinhood being a no service and cheap free platform," said one financial advisor.
Strong deposits, asset growth, and product breadth position platform for continued scale in 2026.
As Patriots quarterback Drake Maye heads to Super Bowl LX, Betterment is ramping up advertising tied to its brand ambassador to draw attention to its robo-advisor and RIA custodian platform.
Survey finds rising interest in event-based markets, though liquidity and risk concerns persist.
Nearly 5,700 advisors now use Altruist, which says “many, many advisors” have come to its platform after Schwab's squeeze on its RIA referral program.
