Score another bullseye for Robinhood.
The millennial-focused social trading and investing app, which drew criticism during the market meltdown in March for repeated outages, is now sitting with $280 million in additional funding. The new capital comes courtesy of a just-completed Series F round led by Sequoia Capital, and gives the company a valuation of $8.3 billion. NEA, Ribbit Capital, 9Yards Capital, and Unusual Ventures also participated in the round.
“Amid challenging times and market volatility, we’re humbled that people are turning to Robinhood to participate in the markets and build their financial future,” the company’s blog read this week. The announcement included data points such as the three million funded accounts the company has added in 2020, as well as Robinhood’s effective outreach to new investors. The company also noted that the funding would be used to scale the Robinhood platform, develop new solutions, and add to its workforce.
Fortune’s coverage of Robinhood’s fundraising features observations on the company’s rumored IPO, the diversification of its revenue and profitability, as well as a potential launch in the U.K.
Founded in 2013 by Baiju Bhatt and Vladimir Tenev, Robinhood offers users the ability to trade and invest, commission-free, in a variety of assets including stocks and ETFs, options, gold, and cryptocurrencies. The app-based platform supports fractional share purchasing, enabling investors to buy equity in thousands of companies with as little as $1, and provides 0.30% APY on uninvested cash. The company began the year with news that its financial newsletter and podcast, Robinhood Snacks, had surpassed 10 million downloads. More recently, to help customers understand recent turbulence in the financial markets, Robinhood unveiled a new Market Volatility page with information on the various steps exchanges take to help mitigate market extremes.
Robinhood became notorious in some circles for the “race to zero” movement last fall in which major brokerages including E-Trade, Charles Schwab, and TD Ameritrade announced plans to eliminate trading fees in stocks and ETFs. Competition with Robinhood was cited as the reason.