On Wednesday, Robinhood Ventures Fund I announced its acquisition of approximately $75 million worth of common stock in OpenAI, thereby allowing retail investors who purchase shares in the publicly traded fund to gain exposure to the AI leader. This investment is a major addition to RVI’s portfolio of high-growth private companies, which includes entities like Airwallex, Boom, Databricks, ElevenLabs, Mercor, Oura, Ramp, Revolut, and Stripe. OpenAI, recognized for creating ChatGPT and recently valued at $852 billion, stands as one of the fund’s most substantial single investments since its inception.
“We are incredibly proud to include OpenAI in our Fund,” declared Sarah Pinto, president of Robinhood Ventures Fund I. “This investment is one of RVI’s largest to date, highlighting our mission to grant everyday investors access to transformative companies that are shaping the future,” she added.
RVI’s closed-end fund structure provides retail investors with access to private company valuations through conventional brokerage accounts, removing barriers typically faced by non-accredited investors. These obstacles often include high minimum investment thresholds and intricate structures.
The strategic timing coincides with a surge in retail interest towards AI investments on crypto-adjacent platforms. As traditional finance and cryptocurrency platforms vie for retail investment dollars in emerging tech sectors, Robinhood’s move to offer AI exposure gains significance. The fund’s public listing allows investors to trade shares like any stock, offering liquidity unavailable in direct private investments.
This investment underscores a market shift wherein the number of publicly traded U.S. companies dwindled from 7,000 in 2000 to 4,000 last year. Concurrently, private companies have surpassed public ones by over 6.5 times as of April 2024, with their estimated value exceeding $10 trillion at the start of 2025.
Under Sam Altman’s leadership, OpenAI competes in the AI arena alongside startup Anthropic—creator of Claude—and tech giant Google with its Gemini model series. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are reportedly preparing for public offerings, potentially as soon as later this year. Users on Myriad—a prediction market platform operated by Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan—currently favor Anthropic to be the first AI giant to go public, assigning nearly 64% odds.