Very cool: Robinhood is underwriting the Oura IPO.
Robinhood’s IPO Access business previously just got shares from the banks underwriting an IPO and distributed them to retail.
Now, Robinhood is actually part of the underwriting syndicate alongside (though far smaller than) Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, BofA, etc.
Robinhood is helping sell the deal, taking underwriting risk (meaning they make a firm commitment to buy shares in the IPO), and will earn underwriting fees.
It’s cool because it very much aligns with their goal of democratizing investing… and they have something the bulge bracket banks can’t offer: direct distribution to 10s of millions of retail investors.
Historically you wouldn’t really want retail in the IPO, but RH makes it easier by saying “we’ll take a $100M block” and you don’t have to deal with 200k tiny investors.
Also notable: they were already investors in Oura via RVI, their closed end fund.
They are now investing in seed companies too via RVI 2, they could theoretically be a lifecycle capital partner to companies.