Just two months after turning venture capital into a tradable ticker, Robinhood is spinning up round two, and this time, it’s dialling up the risk/reward curve.
The company has quietly filed for its second fund, RVII, using a confidential registration to tinker under the hood before going public. Unlike its first fund (RVI), which stacked chips into late-stage heavyweights like OpenAI, Databricks, Stripe, and Revolut, the new vehicle is going earlier, think growth-stage and even seed-level bets. Translation: more volatility, but also a shot at catching the next breakout before it becomes obvious.
The fundraising target is still a mystery. For context, the first fund aimed for $1B but came up short by a few hundred million. Didn’t matter much—RVI has been on a tear. It debuted at $21 on the New York Stock Exchange and has since more than doubled, riding the AI hype wave as its portfolio companies continue to surge in private valuations.
Here’s the real twist: Robinhood isn’t just launching funds, it’s trying to jailbreak venture capital itself. Traditionally, early-stage investing has been locked behind “accredited investor” gates (read: millionaires only). RVI, and now RVII, turn that model into something closer to a publicly traded VC ETF, complete with daily liquidity and zero carry.
CEO Vlad Tenev frames it like this: imagine being able to buy into a basket of private start-ups the same way you’d buy stocks, no lockups, no exclusivity, no velvet rope.
And the bigger ambition? Let retail investors into seed and Series A rounds, the ground floor where companies like OpenAI once lived, and where most of the insane value creation in AI has quietly happened out of public view.
If Robinhood pulls it off, this isn’t just another fund launch. It’s a potential rewrite of how startups get funded, where everyday investors don’t just FOMO into IPOs, but actually ride the exponential curve from day zero… with all the chaos that comes with it.
Author: Mohammed Najem