Popular stock-trading platform Robinhood is preparing to go public.
The company’s CEO Baiju Bhatt said Thursday that in the “Medium to long-term” the company will look to do an initial public offering, or IPO. “It’s something we think is very much in the future. Being a public company closely aligns with our mission,” Bhatt said on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
In May, it surpassed its rival E-Trade Financial and has a total of 5 million brokerage accounts.
Company executives have hinted at expanding beyond stock-trading services.
“We have an ambitious long-term vision to become a full-service financial services company over the next couple of years,” co-founder Vlad Tenev told CNBC in August.
The start-up is dealing with increased competition in the brokerage industry as more no-fee options come to market.
J.P. Morgan announced its own commission-fee trading app in August, intensifying an ongoing price war and move to lower fees in retail brokerage.
