Robinhood has filed to raise up to $200m for a second publicly listed venture fund, targeting early-stage companies linked to Y Combinator and giving retail investors access to private businesses before they reach the stock market.
Robinhood Ventures Fund II (RVII) plans to issue 7.6 million shares at $25 each, with Robinhood separately offering a further 400,000 shares, according to regulatory filings reviewed by several publications.
Subject to regulatory approval, the fund is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RVII on 13 August. The subscription period is due to close the previous day.
Goldman Sachs has been appointed lead bookrunner for the offering, while Citigroup, JPMorgan, UBS and Wells Fargo will serve as joint bookrunners.
RVII is expected to launch with investments in about 80 private companies. Its strategy will focus mainly on seed-stage businesses connected to Y Combinator, including current and former participants in the accelerator and companies founded by Y Combinator alumni.
That marks a significant change from Robinhood Ventures Fund I, which focused on more mature private companies including Databricks, Stripe, OpenAI and SpaceX.
Sarah Pinto, head of Robinhood Ventures, said the new fund was designed to allow retail investors to take part in a company’s development before it reaches an initial public offering.
Robinhood has permission to use the Y Combinator name in connection with the fund. However, the filing makes clear that the accelerator does not sponsor or endorse RVII and does not accept responsibility for its performance or investments.
Y Combinator has backed more than 5,000 start-ups since 2005. According to information cited in the filing, those companies have reached a combined reported valuation of more than $1.3tn and include more than 100 unicorns.
Higher charges and significant investment risks
The new fund will also operate under a different fee structure from its predecessor.
Robinhood Ventures Fund I did not charge a performance fee. RVII will impose a 2% annual management fee and a 20% incentive fee on realised gains. Regulatory disclosures cited by The Defiant estimate the fund’s annual expense ratio at approximately 4.18%.
The prospectus describes RVII as a speculative investment and warns that shareholders could suffer substantial losses. Investors will not have redemption rights, meaning they will not be able to sell their shares back directly to the fund before it is liquidated.
Robinhood’s first venture fund raised about $658.4m after launching in March. It fell by roughly 16% on its first day of trading, despite focusing on more established private companies that Robinhood finance executives had previously described as lower-risk than early-stage investments. The fund subsequently recovered about 30%.
Rich Aberman, RVII’s portfolio manager and a former Y Combinator founder and visiting partner, said Robinhood’s long-term ambition was to establish retail investors as a regular presence on the capitalisation tables of seed and Series A companies.
The fundraising comes as Robinhood expands beyond its traditional brokerage and cryptocurrency operations.
The company recently secured registration with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, allowing its British subsidiary to provide crypto services under the country’s existing anti-money-laundering framework. That framework will operate before a new crypto authorisation regime is introduced.
Robinhood said the approval leaves it positioned to launch cryptocurrency services in the UK. The company had previously confirmed plans to enter the market during its second-quarter results announcement.
It has also developed products beyond spot cryptocurrency trading. During the second quarter, Robinhood launched Robinhood Chain, extended Stock Tokens to more than 120 countries, introduced Robinhood Earn and completed its acquisition of WonderFi.
Those developments came despite crypto transaction revenue falling to $100m from the previous year.
Robinhood’s latest financial results showed total net revenue rising 32% year on year to $1.31bn, driven by growth in options, equities and event contracts. Event contracts generated $156m in revenue during the quarter, making them the company’s fastest-growing transaction business.
The firm is continuing to expand the infrastructure supporting its prediction-markets operation. In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that Robinhood had held discussions about adding Crypto.com’s event contracts to its prediction-markets hub.
Neither company confirmed that a deal had been agreed, and the report said the talks might still end without a completed arrangement.
Robinhood has said it plans to work with several exchanges rather than depend on one provider. Its platform already distributes contracts through Kalshi, ForecastEx and Rothera, the exchange operated by Robinhood through a joint venture with Susquehanna International Group.
Earlier this year, Bernstein increased its price target for Robinhood and forecast that prediction-market revenue could reach about $1.7bn by 2028. The research firm also estimated that the business could generate approximately $586m in revenue during 2026, supported by higher trading activity and a growing network of exchange partnerships.
