Episode summary
Robinhood CFO on Retail IPO Demand, Agentic Trading | Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
· · 14 min · Hosts: Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec · Guests: Shiv Verma
Summary
Robinhood CFO Shiv Verma said the company expects to be involved in a wave of large IPOs, especially Anthropic, and wants retail investors to be treated as a meaningful part of those offerings. He said Robinhood sends customer demand to issuers and banks, and that companies are increasingly asking how much retail can be included, not whether it should be included at all. He cited Robinhood’s own IPO, where 20% was allocated to retail, as evidence that the market has changed.
Verma also argued that Robinhood should connect to outside AI agents as well as its own “Robinhood agents.” He said customers are already using the tools mainly for research and screeners, while agentic trading accounts remain separate and require permission for trades. Robinhood sees early growth, with about 200,000 agentic accounts and about 250 million of assets.
On prediction markets, Verma said non-sports activity has risen to about 30% from 15% a quarter earlier, helped by elections, crypto and other topical events. He said the business is now on a roughly $500 million annual revenue run rate, still under 10% of Robinhood’s total, but growing quickly as the company keeps adding new contracts and products.
Key takeaways
- Verma said Robinhood is pushing issuers to give retail investors larger IPO allocations, and he thinks the market has moved well beyond the old 1% to 2% norm.
- He said Robinhood’s own data show strong retail engagement, with customers depositing more and trading more, and most metrics up 50% year over year.
- Verma said Robinhood favors connecting to third-party AI agents, while its own agentic trading product stays separated from core accounts and requires customer permission for trades.
- He said prediction markets are scaling fast, with non-sports contracts rising to 30% of activity from 15% a quarter earlier.
- Verma said Robinhood’s prediction market business is running at a little over $500 million in annual revenue, though it remains less than 10% of company revenue.
Notable quotes
“retail customers should be allowed to participate. They should have a great experience and that's what we've been building thus far”
“we just ask they're treated as a first class citizen”
“we believe Robin Hood should connect to there and customers have access through those tools”
“your Gentic trading account is completely separate from your core account”
“as of this quarter, about 30% is non-sports, and that's up from 15% just a quarter ago”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. One big story again for us is is Anthropic uh disclosing a 12fold increase in quarterly revenue while revealing that it intends to spend more than $895 billion in the years ahead as the AI lab quarts investors for a potentially record-breaking IPO. On that we actually wanted to check in with the CFO of Robin Hood.
Shiv Verma is with us joining us from Menllo Park, California. Um Shiv, good to have you here with us. Got to start though um so many things going on and we'll get to maybe the elections and the regulatory framework coming at everybody but let's start with the mega IPO environment all of them coming at us anthropic open AI some others how Robin Hood will be involved either in making sure their retail customers get access or in some other way so I'd love to know how you guys are looking at that and how you're providing access for these uh really mega IPOs.
Yeah, first great thank you for having me. Uh, as you mentioned, you know, Anthropic is coming. It's going to be a bell weather for the market.
Uh, you may have seen they actually amended their S1 recently and it showed that Robin Hood will be on the deal. So, we're very excited to help customers get access. You know, if I go back to SpaceX just 6 months ago was historic IPO and now you have Enthropic coming and futures.
And so, for us, the main thing is retail customers should be allowed to participate. They should have a great experience and that's what we've been building thus far.
How what does that look like in terms of like an allocation for these retail investors?
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- retail ipo demand
- agentic trading
- ai agents
- prediction markets
- retail brokerage competition
Companies and tickers mentioned
- HOOD
- Robinhood
- Anthropic
Watch the episode
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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