Robinhood Raises Cool $660M in Extended Funding Round

Sep 23, 2020 at 11:30 UTCUpdated Sep 23, 2020 at 11:55 UTC.A different kind of Robin Hood.Unicorn trading app Robinhood has taken over $600 million in an extended funding round as it rides the summer's retail trading wave.

Reuters reported Wednesday that Robinhood had raised a total of $660 million in its latest Series G round.

The trading app, which lists some cryptocurrencies, took commits from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, 9Yards Capital, and D1 Capital Partners.

The round had originally raised $460 million, but was extended when D1 Capital offered to invest a further $200 million.

That last-minute commit has taken Robinhood's valuation upwards of $11.7 billion, a spokesperson told Reuters.

Robinhood said it will also improve its customer experience after a year with a number of outages - the latest being earlier this month - that have rendered the app temporarily unusable.

Retail-orientated platforms like Robinhood have enjoyed a surge of usage during the pandemic as people working from home have piled into stocks betting on a quick market recovery.

Some have accused Robinhood of failing to protect its customers by offering complex products to amateurs.

Still, Wednesday's raise shows finance apps are thriving as the next generation of unicorns.

Earlier this year, digital bank Revolut raised $500 million in a Series D, taking its total valuation up to $5.5 billion.