Robinhood’s Struggles Continue: Its Cofounders Are No Longer Billionaires, Shares Down 60% Since IPO

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Topline

Robinhood cofounders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt are no longer billionaires according to Forbes’ calculations, as shares of their popular stock trading app continue to move lower in recent months and have now lost half their value since the company went public last year.

Robinhood shares have lost more than half their value since the company’s IPO last summer.

Mark Lennihan/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Key Facts

Shares of Robinhood have fallen nearly 20%—to less than $14 per share—so far in 2022, continuing a downward trend as the company continues to struggle.

Robinhood’s stock has now lost more than half its value since going public last year, down over 60% from its IPO price of $38 per share in July 2021.

The sinking shares mean cofounders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt are no longer billionaires, according to Forbes’ estimates.

Based on Robinhood’s closing stock price of $13.89 per share on Wednesday, Tenev and Bhatt now have net worths of $845 million and $911 million, respectively, from a peak of $4.3 billion and $4.9 billion in August 2021.

Robinhood declined to comment on the news when contacted by Forbes.

Tenev and Bhatt still have an incentive-laden restricted stock award plan that could earn them billions in coming years if the company’s stock price hits certain milestones, according to SEC filings.

Key Background:

Robinhood went public to much fanfare in July 2021 at a $32 billion valuation. While the stock closed down 8% from the IPO price of $38 a share on its first day of trading, Robinhood’s public offering made its two founders a fortune, boosting their net worths to more than $2 billion each. By Forbes’ calculations, the pair first became billionaires in September 2020 after a private funding round valued Robinhood at $11.7 billion.

Big Number: 22.4 Million

That’s the total number of user accounts Robinhood has on its platform.

What To Watch For:

Robinhood will announce fourth quarter earnings and full year results on January 27. The company will be hoping to fare better than it did last quarter, when shares fell 10% after third-quarter earnings substantially missed expectations. In its last earnings report, Robinhood saw revenue drop from from $565 million in the second quarter to $365 million, in large part due to a sharp decline in revenue from crypto trading on Robinhood’s platform. After a blockbuster start to 2021—when a wild rally in meme stocks like GameStop and cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin helped spur massive growth for Robinhood, the company’s trading activity has substantially settled down. The company warned in October that lower retail trading activity “may persist” and adversely affect fourth-quarter earnings.