Robinhood aims for $35b valuation

NEW YORK (AFP/APP): The fast-growing online investment platform Robinhood aims for a valuation of as much as $35 billion when it goes public, the company said Monday in a securities filing.
Robinhood, which has grown quickly during the coronavirus pandemic, anticipates offering shares at between $38 and $42 apiece, making its initial public offering worth as much as $2.3 billion. The service, which is especially popular with younger investors, has described its mission as “to democratize finance for all.”
The company had 18 million funded accounts at the end of March with $81 billion in assets under custody.
The company was cofounded in 2013 by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, who met as undergraduates at Stanford University.
Robinhood’s growing population of individual investors have played a role in the so-called “Reddit Rebellion” in which retail investors coalesced on the Reddit social network in 2021 to support beaten-down stocks such as GameStop and BlackBerry.
The company plans to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker “HOOD.”