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DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS AND SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2021
Accounting Policies [Abstract]  
DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS AND SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES
NOTE 1: DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS AND SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES
Robinhood Markets, Inc. (“RHM”, together with its subsidiaries, “Robinhood”, the “Company”, “we”, or “us”) was incorporated in the State of Delaware on November 22, 2013. Our most significant, wholly-owned subsidiaries are:
Robinhood Financial LLC (“RHF”), a registered introducing broker-dealer;
Robinhood Securities, LLC (“RHS”), a registered clearing broker-dealer; and
Robinhood Crypto, LLC (“RHC”), which provides users the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
Acting as the agent of the user, we facilitate the purchase and sale of options, cryptocurrencies, and equities through our platform by routing transactions through market makers, who are responsible for trade execution. Upon execution of a trade, users are legally required to purchase options, cryptocurrencies, or equities for cash from the transaction counterparty or to sell options, cryptocurrencies, or equities for cash to the transaction counterparty, depending on the transaction. Acting as agent, we facilitate and confirm trades only when there are binding, matched legal obligations from the user and the market maker on both sides of the trade. Our users have ownership of the securities, including those that collateralize margin loans, and cryptocurrencies transacted on our platform and, as a result, any such securities or cryptocurrencies owned by users are not presented in our unaudited condensed consolidated balance sheets. We do not allow users to purchase cryptocurrency on margin. We hold cryptocurrency in custody for our users’ accounts in one or more omnibus cryptocurrency wallets.
In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus referred to as “COVID-19” to be a global pandemic. In response to the pandemic, we have enabled nearly all of our employees, some permanently, to work remotely and have restricted business travel. As vaccination rates among the population have increased, in the fourth quarter of 2021 we started to allow some employees to voluntarily return to work in our corporate offices but the timing of any full return for those employees who are not permanently remote has not been determined and will be impacted by developments related to the pandemic. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen substantial growth in our user base, retention, engagement and trading activity metrics, as well as continued gains and periodic all-time highs achieved by the equity markets generally. During this period, market volatility, stay-at-home orders and increased interest in investing and personal finance, coupled with low interest rates and a positive market environment, especially in the U.S. equity and cryptocurrency markets, helped foster an environment that has encouraged an unprecedented number of first-time retail investors to become our users and begin trading on our platform. However, the circumstances that have accelerated the growth of our user base in recent periods, particularly in the first half of 2021, might not continue in the future. For example, our Net Cumulative Funded Accounts declined slightly in the current quarter compared to the prior quarter in the same year. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted, in part, in inefficiencies or delays in our business, operational challenges, additional costs related to business continuity initiatives as our workforce is largely working remotely, and increased vulnerability to cybersecurity attacks or other privacy or data security incidents. The extent of the continuing impact of COVID-19 on our business, financial condition, and results of operations will depend largely on future developments, including the duration of the pandemic, actions taken to contain COVID-19 or address its impact, our ability to reintegrate our workforce or the ability of our workforce to adapt to the long-term distributed workforce model we have adopted (with some employees part- or full-
time remote, and others not), the impact on capital and financial markets, and the related impact on the financial circumstances of our customers, all of which are highly uncertain and difficult to predict.

Initial Public Offering
On August 2, 2021, we closed our initial public offering ("IPO") of 55.0 million shares of Class A common stock, including 2.6 million shares sold by selling shareholders, at a public offering price of $38.00 per share. On August 31, 2021, we sold an additional 4.4 million shares of Class A common stock pursuant to the option granted to the underwriters to purchase additional shares. The total net proceeds we received in the IPO were approximately $2.05 billion after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions of $90.8 million and offering expenses of $12.6 million. In connection with the completion of the IPO: 1) the Company filed its Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation (the “Charter”), which authorizes a total of 21.0 billion shares of Class A common stock, 700.0 million shares of Class B common stock, 7.0 billion shares of Class C common stock, and 210.0 million shares of preferred stock, 2) all shares of our outstanding redeemable convertible preferred stock automatically converted into a total of 412.7 million shares of our common stock, 3) all 233.3 million previously outstanding shares of the Company’s common stock, along with the 412.7 million shares of common stock mentioned above, were automatically reclassified into an equivalent number of shares of the Company’s Class A common stock (the “Reclassification”), 4) a total of 130.2 million shares of Class A common stock held by our founders and their related entities were exchanged for an equivalent number of shares of Class B common stock pursuant to the terms of certain exchange agreements, 5) all of our outstanding convertible notes automatically converted into 137.3 million shares of Class A common stock and 6) all warrants became exercisable at a strike price of $26.60 per share for an aggregate of 14.3 million shares of Class A common stock. As a result, following the completion of the IPO, we have three classes of authorized common stock: Class A common stock, Class B common stock, and Class C common stock, of which only Class A common stock and Class B common stock were outstanding as of September 30, 2021. Refer to Note 13 for additional information about the terms of our various classes of common stock.
Additionally, upon our IPO, we recognized $1.01 billion of share-based compensation expense related to restricted stock units (“RSUs”) for which the time-based vesting condition was satisfied or partially satisfied as the performance condition, a liquidity event, was satisfied. Upon the IPO, 24.6 million RSUs vested and 10.8 million shares of Class A common stock were withheld to meet the related tax withholding requirements.
Basis of Presentation
The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”) and pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) for interim financial reporting. The condensed consolidated financial statements are unaudited, and in management’s opinion, include all adjustments, including normal recurring adjustments and accruals necessary for a fair presentation of the results for the interim periods presented. Operating results for the periods presented are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the full fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 or any future period. These unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the audited annual consolidated financial statements and notes included in our final prospectus for our IPO dated July 28, 2021 and filed with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424(b)(4) under the Securities Act of 1934 on July 30, 2021 (the “Final Prospectus”). There have been no material changes in our significant accounting policies as described in our consolidated financial statements included in our audited annual consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020, other than the adoption of the accounting pronouncement as described below in Note 2. The unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements include the accounts of RHM and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. All intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated.
Use of Estimates
The preparation of unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements in accordance with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts in the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience, and other assumptions we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, which together form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities. Assumptions and estimates used in preparing our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements include those related to the determination of allowances for credit losses, the capitalization and estimated useful life of internally developed software, contingent liabilities, useful lives of property and equipment, the incremental borrowing rate used to determine the present value of lease payments, the valuation and recognition of share-based compensation, the valuation of the convertible notes and warrant liability, the valuation and estimated useful lives of acquired intangible assets, uncertain tax positions, accrued liabilities, and the recognition and measurement of current and deferred income tax assets and liabilities. Actual results could differ from these estimates and could have a material adverse effect on our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements.
Concentration of Credit Risk
We derived transaction-based revenues from individual market makers in excess of 10% of total revenues, as follows:
Three Months Ended
September 30,
Nine Months Ended
September 30,
2020202120202021
Market maker:
Citadel Securities, LLC33 %23 %34 %21 %
Tai Mo Shan Limited(1)
%%%17 %
Entities affiliated with Susquehanna International Group, LLP(2)
18 %13 %20 %11 %
Entities affiliated with Wolverine Holdings, L.P.(3)
10 %13 %10 %10 %
All others individually less than 10%13 %16 %%19 %
Total as percentage of total revenue:75 %73 %75 %78 %
________________
(1)Member of Jump Trading Group
(2)Consists of Global Execution Brokers, LP and G1X Execution Services, LLC
(3)Consists of Wolverine Execution Services, LLC and Wolverine Securities LLC

We are engaged in various trading and brokerage activities in which the counterparties primarily include broker-dealers, banks, and other financial institutions. In the event our counterparties do not fulfill their obligations, we may be exposed to risk. The risk of default depends on the creditworthiness of the counterparty. Default of a counterparty in equities and options trades, which are facilitated through clearinghouses, would generally be spread among the clearinghouse's members rather than falling entirely on us. It is our policy to review, as necessary, the credit standing of each counterparty.