One of the hottest private companies is software giant Databricks, recently valued at $134 billion. The growth of the company's valuation could help explain why retail investors are rushing to new offerings that give them exposure to pre-IPO companies.
Robinhood Venture Fund Sees Huge Demand
Launched in March, the Robinhood Ventures Fund I (NYSE:RVI) closed-end fund from Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:HOOD) offers investors exposure to several pre-IPO companies.
In a recent interview at the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything Conference, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev shared just how much demand there was for this venture fund.
"We had something like over 150,000 retail investors participate in the IPO, so it's quite democratized," Tenev said, as reported by TechCrunch.
The Robinhood Venture Fund I launched with investments in companies like Databricks, Oura, Revolut, Mercor, Airwallex, Boom Supersonic and Ramp. Since the IPO, the fund has also invested in ElevenLabs, Stripe and OpenAI.
"We call them frontier companies. There are private companies that are raising capital at valuations in the high hundreds of billions. You're going to see, perhaps, multiple private companies getting into the trillion [in valuation] before the IPO – before retail investors can participate."
The Robinhood Venture Fund I made a $75 million investment in OpenAI in April.
The new fund is one of the growing ways Robinhood is hoping to democratize access to investments for the company's customers, who are mostly considered retail investors.
"We should let those people in at the ground floor, so that they can actually benefit from this potential appreciation that's increasingly happening in the private markets."
Databricks Valuation Soars
In a February 2026 funding round, Databricks was valued at $134 billion. This is up around 30% from the company's funding round in September 2025.
While Robinhood Venture Fund investors won't see those valuation gains yet, Databricks was the top holding in the venture fund at the time of the IPO at 23.2% of assets.
For a company that continues to rise in valuation ahead of a potential IPO, Robinhood Venture Fund investors now get access to the software company that is also held in an Ark Invest Venture Fund, the investment portfolio of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and as an investment made by NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA).
Pelosi disclosed an investment in Databricks via Forge Investments on March 4, 2024. The investment, made by her husband and venture capitalist Paul Pelosi, was listed as being in a range of $1 million to $5 million.
The Forge Investments website shows a value of $73.50 per share for Databricks and a $43.4 billion valuation for the September 2023 funding round, and, in 2024, around the time the Pelosis invested.
While it is unknown exactly at which valuation the congresswoman and her husband invested in the company, the stake was likely made near the $43 billion valuation.
Based on the new valuation of $130 billion, Databricks is now worth 302.3% more than it was at its $43 billion funding round. This would make the $1 million to $5 million investment now worth $3.02 million to $15.12 million. This means Pelosi’s investment is up at least $2 million and could be up as much as $10.12 million.
The investment in Databricks focused attention on Pelosi, given the size, the company being private, and the company being headquartered in San Francisco within her congressional district.
IPO timing for Databricks could continue to be delayed with the company passing on 2024 due to it being an election year and CEO Ali Ghodsi previously targeting the potential of 2025 or 2026. The latest funding round could push a public offering out even further.
Investors in Robinhood Ventures Fund I get access to Databricks before its IPO, along with stakes in several other pre-IPO companies.
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