Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the company wants to move beyond being just a trading app and eventually offer customers a broader suite of wealth management services. Speaking on CNBC’s Mad Money, he said active traders remain the “engine room” and foundation of the business, but Robinhood’s longer-term goal is to deepen those customer relationships over time.
According to Tenev, Robinhood uses stock trading, crypto and prediction markets as its main customer acquisition channels, then tries to move those users into retirement accounts, financial advice and other wealth management offerings. He said those products may be less flashy, but they are more important to the company’s long-term future.
Robinhood, which built its brand on commission-free stock trading for a generation of younger investors, is now trying to generate more revenue from existing users. At the end of the June quarter, the company had 28 million funded accounts, up 7% year over year, while average revenue per user rose 24%. That suggests Robinhood is trying to accelerate revenue and profit growth on a maturing platform by expanding wallet share, not just by adding new users.
Tenev pointed to retirement accounts as one example. Robinhood offers subscribers to its paid Robinhood Gold tier a 3% match on eligible IRA contributions. He said those accounts are more portable and let workers keep the same retirement account when changing jobs instead of relying on an employer-sponsored 401(k). At the same time, he noted that those products are usually not what brings customers to Robinhood first.
Tenev also said a major intergenerational wealth transfer could create a significant opportunity for the company. More than $100 trillion in wealth is moving from older generations to younger ones, he said, calling it a large and accelerating asset transfer over the coming decades.
As customers build wealth, their needs can expand into trusts, estate planning, private wealth management and private banking, Tenev said. Robinhood is already building those capabilities through its push into managed investing, banking and credit cards. The company also acquired portfolio management platform TradePMR in February 2025 and this year began rolling out an advisor network linking customers with registered investment advisors.
Tenev said the challenge is to bring products usually reserved for high-net-worth clients to the mass market at very low prices. In his view, technology can open access to those services to tens of millions of people, rather than limiting them to clients who traditionally had to rely on expensive private banking and advisory channels.
Investors are increasingly giving Robinhood credit for that opportunity. The stock is up about 6% this year and roughly 38% since the start of August. Morgan Stanley recently upgraded Robinhood to overweight and raised its price target to $150 from $124, arguing that the company’s newer businesses could support a longer growth runway. Analyst Michael Cyprys wrote that HOOD’s expanding product set gives customers more reasons to consolidate assets on the platform and reduces the risk of users leaving as its largely Gen Y/Z customer base accumulates more wealth and financial complexity.
