Robinhood is preparing to launch a second publicly traded venture fund, just two months after its first one debuted on the NYSE. According to TechCrunch AI, the company has filed a confidential registration for RVII, the regulatory step that precedes a public IPO. What stands out here is the scope: RVII will reach beyond late-stage companies and invest in growth-stage and early-stage startups too.
The first fund, RVI, has been on a tear. It opened at $21 a share in early March and closed Monday at $43.69, more than doubling in roughly two months. TechCrunch AI reports that market enthusiasm for the AI prospects of the fund’s underlying startups has likely fueled the run-up.
What RVI holds today
- Airwallex
- Boom
- Databricks
- ElevenLabs
- Mercor
- OpenAI
- Oura
- Ramp
- Revolut
- Stripe
Robinhood targeted $1 billion for RVI and came up several hundred million short. The stock performance since launch has more than made up for the soft raise.
How RVII is different
RVII widens the mandate. Instead of concentrating on late-stage names, it will also chase earlier rounds, where companies are younger, riskier, and capable of much bigger multiples on exit. The fundraising target hasn’t been set yet, per the company’s blog post cited by TechCrunch AI.
The pitch to retail
Federal rules currently restrict private-market investing to “accredited” investors: net worth above $1 million or annual income above $200,000. That gate keeps most people out of the highest-appreciation phase of a startup’s life. Robinhood’s funds are built to route around it.
CEO Vlad Tenev framed the structure at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference last week:
A publicly traded venture capital firm with daily liquidity. No accreditation requirements and no carry.
Daily liquidity means shares trade any day the market is open, unlike traditional VC where capital locks up for years.
No carry means Robinhood doesn’t skim a percentage of investment profits, which is standard practice at conventional firms.
Why this matters
Most of the appreciation in the biggest AI names has happened in private markets, before the public ever gets a shot. OpenAI, Databricks, and Stripe have all crossed valuations that dwarf many listed tech companies, and that growth has been off-limits to ordinary brokerage accounts.
Tenev’s longer-term ambition is bigger than a pair of funds. “The aspiration is, if you’re a company raising a seed round and a Series A round, so, just first capital, retail should be a big chunk of that round, much like it now is in the public markets,” he said at the conference. “And we should let those people in at the ground floor.”
The caveat
Early-stage means more risk. TechCrunch AI notes that the earliest rounds are where the biggest returns are often made, and also where a lot of money gets lost. RVI’s run-up has ridden the AI rally, and a portfolio with seed and Series A bets will look very different on the downside than a basket of late-stage names with revenue.
If Robinhood pulls it off and regulators stay cooperative, the structure of how startups raise their first dollars could shift. Retail investors sitting next to venture firms in seed rounds would be a real break from how private markets have worked for decades. Full details on RVII’s pricing and timing are pending the public S-1; more at the original source.