The leading retail investment platform Robinhood announced on Monday that it has acquired Pluto, an AI-powered investment advisory firm.
While the use of AI in analyzing markets and developing investment strategies is becoming increasingly common, the acquisition appears to be Robinhood's first campaign to bring the technology to its more than 10 million monthly users.
Mayank Agarwal, Robinhood's VP of Engineering, said in the announcement that the company is looking to leverage Pluto's “expertise in artificial intelligence and finance to complement our team's mission to bring finance to our customers.”
Pluto offers web-based services such as advanced data analytics, personalized investment strategies, real-time insights and portfolio optimization.“Judgment-free conversational AI” is described as an “investment pilot”. The system provided advanced data analytics using big data models to process market data, quickly identify trends and opportunities, and tailor investment recommendations to individual client profiles based on risk tolerance and financial goals.
Pluto has since taken the service offline, calling the website “for informational purposes only.”
Pluto's founder and CEO is Jacob Sainsbury, who started the company at the age of 24 and is hailed as a “Gen Z boss” on Pluto's TikTok channel. He previously worked on NVIDIA's cloud gaming services and was the youngest engineer to work on “quantitative finance and strategic investing” at Connecticut-based asset manager Bridgewater, according to Robinhood.
Sainsbury's will now join Robinhood and “help integrate AI-powered capabilities on the Robinhood platform,” the company said.
“Robinhood is the ideal destination for building products that democratize access to financial services through sophisticated AI, such as wealth management and financial planning,” Sansbury said in the announcement.
Robinhood and its mobile application are known for providing a user-friendly interface for retail investors to trade stocks, options and cryptocurrencies. Its reach gave the platform a major role in the “meme stock” craze of 2021, which baffled Wall Street as individual investors lined up behind shares of companies like GameStop.
The company has recently been expanding its offerings by adding services such as retirement products and credit cards. Last month, Robinhood acquired the cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp for $200 million.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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