Robinhood, the retail investment platform, has launched a publicly tradable fund giving ordinary investors exposure to some of the world's largest private technology companies, including Ramp, Revolut, Aura and Databricks, which have historically been accessible only to institutional and venture investors.
The fund was created in response to direct customer feedback, with Robinhood's research indicating sustained demand for access to late-stage growth companies that have remained private longer than previous generations of technology businesses.
Shiv Varma, Robinhood's chief financial officer, said the company's goal is to give customers access to what it describes as best-in-class frontier technology names, and that the fund would continue to grow as suitable companies are identified.
The fund is managed by a dedicated investment team led by portfolio manager Sarah Pinto, which sources and underwrites each company using a combination of top-down sector analysis and bottom-up individual assessment, evaluating factors including technology leadership and long-term growth potential.
When a portfolio company goes public and the fund elects to sell its position, 90% of any realised gains will be distributed directly to shareholders, a structure Robinhood says carries a tax advantage by avoiding the double taxation that can apply to gains held within certain fund structures.
Varma said that while private companies can meet their capital requirements through private fundraising, going public provides access to the US public equities market, the deepest pool of capital in the world, and imposes a discipline on management that can be beneficial for long-term development.
Robinhood itself has used its own history as a public company to illustrate the argument, noting that short-term market volatility should not be the primary lens through which an initial public offering is evaluated, and that the true measure of a listing's success is better assessed over three, five or ten years.
The fund launch comes as Robinhood reported more than $1.3 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter, with the company now operating 11 distinct business lines each generating more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
The company also reported that its prediction markets business generated $300 million in annualised revenue in its first year, and said it considered the category to be at the early stages of a longer growth cycle.
Robinhood said it plans to grow headcount in the mid single digits in 2026, with overall expenses expected to rise approximately 18%, funded in part by more than nine figures in cost savings the company attributes to artificial intelligence adoption across its operations.