Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a closed-end fund trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RVI, announced today, April 22, 2026, that it has completed an investment of approximately $75 million in OpenAI common stock. The purchase of shares closed on April 17, 2026. This move positions OpenAI as a significant holding within the fund's portfolio, which also includes companies such as Airwallex, Revolut, and Stripe.
Sarah Pinto, President of Robinhood Ventures Fund I, stated that OpenAI is considered a frontier artificial intelligence company and expressed pride in adding it to the fund. Pinto emphasized that this investment, being one of RVI's largest, aligns with the fund's core mission to offer everyday investors access to what it deems transformative companies shaping the future.
Robinhood Ventures aims to democratize finance by providing retail investors with exposure to private markets, which have historically been more accessible to wealthy individuals and institutions. The company highlighted that the number of publicly traded companies in the U.S. has decreased from approximately 7,000 at the turn of the century to around 4,000 in 2025. Concurrently, companies are remaining private for longer periods and increasing in both number and valuation. As of April 2024, there were over 6.5 times as many private companies as public ones, with the estimated value of these private firms in the U.S. exceeding $10 trillion in the first quarter of 2025.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev previously commented on the disparity, noting that private market investments were once reserved for an elite group. The establishment of Robinhood Ventures seeks to address this by allowing everyday individuals to invest in opportunities previously unavailable to them.
OpenAI, an AI research and deployment company, has a stated mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. While Robinhood's investment does not allow for direct investment in OpenAI's stock, it provides an avenue for traders to gain indirect exposure to the AI giant. OpenAI's post-money valuation after a funding round in March was reported at over $850 billion.