FinTech News
Robinhood Acquires AI Investment Research Platform Pluto
The popular trading app Robinhood is joining the AI gold rush with its latest acquisition.
About Pluto and the acquisition:
In a blog post, Robinhood announced plans to purchase the AI-powered investment research tool Pluto Capital. With Pluto, investors can obtain customized strategies based on their goals. As a result of the acquisition, Pluto’s founder and CEO Jacob Sansbury will join Robinhood’s team. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Using Pluto, investors have been able to access enhanced data analysis, including the ability to identify emerging trends more quickly. Additionally, as mentioned, the tool can offer personalized investment strategy suggestions based on risk tolerance, historical behavior, goals, and more. Similarly, the service offers real-time insights and portfolio optimization — all of which are tailored to investor preferences.
More from Robinhood:
This is the second acquisition that Robinhood has announced in less than a month, having revealed plans to purchase Bitstamp for $200 million in June. Meanwhile, the app is also set to put its 2023 acquisition of X1 to work with the impending launch of its Robinhood Gold credit card. The card, which will offer 3% back across the board, currently has a waitlist.
What they’re saying:
Commenting on the deal with Pluto, Robinhood’s VP of engineering Mayank Agarwal stated, “We are thrilled to welcome Pluto and Jacob Sansbury to Robinhood. They have built an impressive platform that is highly regarded in the financial services industry. Importantly, their expertise in artificial intelligence coupled with a mission-aligned passion to democratize finance will complement our team’s effort to bring AI-powered tools to our customers.”
Meanwhile, Sansbury noted, “Robinhood is the ideal destination to build products that democratize access to financial services like wealth management and financial planning through state-of-the-art AI. I look forward to innovating at the company which has inspired me and so many others.”
My thoughts:
Although the investment features Pluto boasts do sound useful overall, I’ve grown a bit skeptical when it comes to claims of AI-powered offerings (especially after visiting CES this year). The fact that Robinhood hasn’t revealed how much it plans to pay for Pluto and is also putting more of an emphasis on acquiring the CEO than the company itself also leads me to believe that this deal is more about making a splash than producing worthwhile features. Of course, as a Robinhood user myself, I’d love to be proven wrong.
Setting my cynicism aside, this does sound like a good pairing as Robinhood continues to expand. With the FinTech also on a buying streak as of late, I look forward to seeing what other companies and tools they add to their arsenal next.
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