The day before Robinhood goes under the Congressional hammer, domestic rival Public.com announced that it has closed a $220 million funding round at a $1.2 billion valuation.
Public added that it has reached one million members – over the course of just 18 months post-launch. Public’s latest round was put together by prior investors, including Greycroft, Accel, Tiger Global, Inspired Capital and others.
With rising interest in the savings and investing space and Robinhood’s revenues growing to a run rate of more than $800 million in Q4 2020, it’s not hard to see why investors are backing Public, especially after Robinhood’s brand took a hit during the GameStop saga.
Public has taken the zero-cost investing model a step further by dropping payment for order flow (PFOF), a method of revenue generation in which companies like Robinhood get a small fee for sending their users’ trades to a market maker.
