Robinhood's Venture Fund Makes First Bets: Stripe and ElevenLabs
Robinhood Ventures Fund I deployed $34.6M into Stripe and ElevenLabs as its debut private market investments.
Robinhood is putting retail investors into the private markets game. Its newly launched Ventures Fund I just disclosed its first two investments — and they're big names.
The closed-end fund scooped up $14.6 million worth of Stripe shares and dropped $20 million on ElevenLabs preferred stock. Both transactions happened in March.
The whole point of the fund: let everyday investors get exposure to high-profile private companies before they hit the public markets. That's territory traditionally locked behind accredited investor gates and VC club deals.
Stripe needs no introduction in fintech circles. ElevenLabs, the AI voice synthesis startup, has been on a tear as demand for generative audio tools explodes.
Combined, that's $34.6 million deployed across two bets spanning payments infrastructure and AI. Not a bad opening hand for Robinhood's first venture vehicle.