Robinhood gave private investors access to OpenAI through its fund. Its stock soared

Equity and cryptocurrency trading platform Robinhood announced that it has invested $75 million in OpenAI through its Robinhood Ventures Fund I (RVI), a fund for retail investors. By doing so, the company is expanding their access to leading private technology players.

Shares of the fund, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in March, have soared more than 20%.

The investment in developer ChatGPT has become one of the largest for RVI and reflects its strategy of providing retail investors with access to companies shaping the future of AI, said Sarah Pinto, president of the fund, in a press release. Robinhood launched such an opportunity late last year, with investors gaining access to AI startups not directly, but through the purchase of stakes in the fund. This means they own part of its portfolio, not shares, and do not have the rights of ordinary shareholders. "AI will lead to 'massive shocks, and we want people to have access to the drivers of these shocks,'" Vlad Tenev, head of the trading platform, explained his idea.

In the summer of 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman criticized Robinhood for another attempt to open access to non-public assets to a wider audience - the launch of trading in tokenized shares of AI startups as well as Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX. Altman reminded investors that such instruments do not give a real stake in the business.

As fast-growing tech companies stay private longer and delay IPOs, demand for them among private investors has surged, CNBC notes. OpenAI is preparing for an IPO in the fourth quarter of 2026, sources told The Wall Street Journal in late January.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor