Robinhood is launching the Robinhood Ventures Fund II (RVII), a closed-end fund targeting a $200 million raise through an IPO. Priced at $25 per share, the fund is scheduled to list on the New York Stock Exchange on August 13, 2026, allowing retail investors to gain indirect exposure to seed-stage Y Combinator startup.
Robinhood unveiled a financial instrument that lets anyone feel like they, too, can make money by backing Y Combinator startups.
Robinhood opened the order window on Monday for Robinhood Ventures Fund II, a closed-end fund that will give retail investors exposure to seed-stage startups from the Y Combinator ecosystem.
The fund extends Robinhood’s private-markets push from late-stage names like Open AI into the riskiest end of venture capital — seed-stage companies, most of which fail — packaged as an exchange-listed product with no investment minimums or accreditation requirements. It is the second such vehicle Robinhood has brought to market this year, after Robinhood Ventures Fund I listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March.
The offering totals 8 million shares — 7.6 million sold by the fund and 400,000 by Robinhood Markets — for a raise of about $200 million at the expected price, with underwriters holding a 30-day option to buy 1.2 million more. Robinhood customers can request shares through the app until the order window closes on Aug. 12, and the fund expects to list on the NYSE under the ticker RVII on Aug. 13 with positions in 80 private companies at launch. Goldman Sachs is lead bookrunner, joined by Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, UBS and Wells Fargo.
“The next generation of promising startups is being built today,” said Sarah Pinto, head of Robinhood Ventures. “With Robinhood Ventures Fund II, retail investors no longer have to wait until a company’s IPO to be part of an early growth journey.”
The Y Combinator Bet
RVII will invest in companies that are current or former Y Combinator participants, or whose founders went through the accelerator’s programs. Y Combinator has funded more than 5,000 companies since 2005 with a combined value above $1.3 trillion, including more than 100 unicorns, according to the offering announcement. Robinhood’s disclosures note that Y Combinator does not sponsor or endorse the fund.
“As Robinhood Ventures scales, our mission is for it to become the norm that retail is represented in your seed or Series A cap table,” said Rich Aberman, the fund’s portfolio manager.
The structure is a business development company, a closed-end fund regulated under the Investment Company Act of 1940,managed by Robinhood Ventures DE, an SEC-registered adviser owned by Robinhood Markets. Investors pay a 2% annual management fee plus a 20% incentive fee on realized gains, with total annual expenses estimated at 4.18%. Robinhood’s own materials call the investment “speculative,” warn of a “substantial risk of loss,” and note shareholders have no redemption rights — shares can only be sold on the open market, where they may trade below the value of the fund’s holdings.
The fund intends to raise as much as $200 million, and use that money to invest in startups founded by current and former Y Combinator participants, should those startups agree to sell their shares.
While any retail investor can buy shares in the fund, they will not directly hold any shares in the startups. Investors will be able to trade their shares in the fund, but it’s unclear how much profit they can expect to make should the YC companies manage big exits.
‘The fund intends to pay the 2/20 fees typical in the VC world to another entity owned by Robinhood, plus tack on extra fees. That means Robinhood’s unit will collect 2% of the net returns as a management fee, plus other fees, taking the total to just over 4%,’ the company said.
The fund will also pay the Robinhood unit 20% “carried interest” (commonly called “carry”). That means if enough Y Combinator companies have good exits for the fund to make money, that Robinhood unit will get 20% of the resulting returns.
But RVII doesn’t appear to have an end date for returning its remaining profits to investors, unlike VC funds, which typically tend to run for about 10 years. Nor does RVII appear to promise regular distributions of cash profits. It may issue such distributions, but investors may largely have to bank on returns from the fund’s rising stock price. (We’ve asked Robinhood for more information about this.)
It’s certainly possible to make money by trading the fund’s shares. Robinhood Ventures Fund I (NYSE: RVI), which was also founded to buy shares in hot private companies like Databricks, Mercor and OpenAI, routinely trades above its IPO price of $21.
It’s equally possible to lose money: After peaking at over $56 in May, RVI’s stock now trades at around $28 per share.
Robinhood has also gotten some push backs to the names of valuable private companies. In 2025, it sold crypto assets described as tokenized shares of Open AI and SpaceX. Open AI condemned these, saying it wasn’t involved, and that the tokens did not represent any holdings in the company.
This fund, however, appears to operate more than 2025 crypto vehicle. It is buying actual shares. So, for anyone that likes the idea of betting on the YC pedigree, this is certainly a very Silicon Valley way to go.
About the Author
Becky Anthony is a tech writer and researcher at techregard. Based in Nigeria, she has a background in English from Bayero University and a strong interest in how technology drives growth and access. She enjoys telling stories about technology, startups and innovation in ways that are clear, human and useful for readers across Africa and globally.
