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Robinhood prices IPO at a conservative $38

The company had set a range of $38 to $42 for its offering. Shares are expected to begin trading Thursday.

Hand holding phone with Robinhood app

Robinhood priced its IPO at $38, the bottom of its range

Photoillustration: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Robinhood priced its initial public offering at $38a share on Wednesday, setting the stage for one of the most anticipated public trading debuts this year.

The price, which was reported by the Wall Street Journal, was at the low end of the $38 to $42 range the company set for the IPO last week. The online brokerage, which was eyeing a valuation of up to $35 billion but could now settle for something below $32 billion, is expected to begin trading Thursday on the Nasdaq under the ticker 'HOOD.'

Founded in 2013 by Stanford alumni Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, the company emerged as the leading mobile trading app and pioneered the no-commission trend in retail investing. But Robinhood also became controversial as regulators and legislators accused the brokerage of turning stock investing into a game that exposed new and inexperienced investors to huge risks.

Benjamin Pimentel

Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers crypto and fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Google Voice at (925) 307-9342.

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