After years of reports, free stock-trading startup Robinhood Market Inc. is finally going public after confidentially submitting its initial public offering paperwork to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

There’s really nothing confidential about the filing, since Robinhood posted about it on its blog. Other than providing a basic statement about offering common stock in its IPO, Robinhood did not provide any further details such as the number of shares to be offered, the price range of their shares or even the method by which it intends to go public.

Founded in 2013, Robinhood was the first and now the most popular zero-fee stock trading app, often cited as beloved by millennials. The company first started offering a web-based service in November 2017 before adding support for cryptocurrency trading in January 2018.

Robinhood was a much-loved service particularly among smaller investors until the now-infamous GameStop Corp. “pump” occurred in January. The Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets decided Jan. 26 to pump GameStop, a retail gaming company that was floundering during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a result pumped the company’s share price went from $76.74 Jan. 24 to a high of $347.51. As recently as December GameStop shares had been trading at about $12.

Market manipulation is usually the domain of Wall Street traders but in this case, it was arguably the little guy who was able to get in on the action. GameStop shares are trading at $181.75 as of the time of writing.

Where Robinhood becomes part of the story is that it pitches itself as having a mission to “democratize finance for all.” During the initial GameStop frenzy in late January, Robinhood was the platform of choice of Reddit users who were pumping the stock. Then Robinhood suspended trading in GameStop.

Robinhood argued that it had no choice other than to suspend trading in GameStop shares. Company Chief Executive Officer Vladimir Tenev told Tesla Inc. and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk on Clubhouse Feb. 1 that “we had no choice in the case” and that Robinhood “had to conform to our regulatory capital requirements.” Tenev claimed that Robinhood was asked by the National Securities Clearing Corp. to provide a deposit of $3 billion to back up trades.

The drama around GameStop aside, Robinhood is a standout startup in its success and popularity. Coming into its IPO, Robinhood has raised $5.6 billion, according to data from Crunchbase, including a $2.4 billion round in February. Investors include ICONIQ Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, NEA, 9Yards Capital and Ribbit Ventures.

Photo: Robinhood