At its current valuation of $852 billion (1), privately held OpenAI has been a mega winner for a select group of investors. But a recent deal with a retail-oriented brokerage has opened access to the ChatGPT creator.
In a recent press release (2), Robinhood says it purchased $75 million in OpenAI common stock to add to its publicly traded Robinhood Ventures Fund I (NYSE: RVI). That means anyone who buys RVI stock today will get a piece of Robinhood’s latest OpenAI reserve.
Sarah Pinto, president of Robinhood Ventures Fund I, said in the press release that this $75 million investment is the largest to date for RVI, adding that it “underscores our core mission of providing everyday investors with access to what we believe are transformative companies that shape the future.”
However, this is not the first time Robinhood has tried to make OpenAI more accessible to non-accredited traders. Controversially, this brokerage began experimenting with virtual tokens representing OpenAI shares in 2025, according to Business Insider (3). Once OpenAI found out about this unofficial offer, they quickly responded on X.
“We do not partner with Robinhood, we do not participate in this, and we do not endorse it,” OpenAI wrote in its post on X(4). “Any capital transfer from OpenAI requires our approval; we do not approve any transfers. Please be careful.”
With this $75 million stock deal, Robinhood appears to be moving toward a more traditional route, serving as an intermediary between retail and the private market.
The downside is that retail traders still won’t get full access to OpenAI. RVI is a closed-end fund that includes many other startups, such as Mercor, Oura, and Stripe. Although OpenAI is now RVI’s largest holding, the price per share will not exactly mimic OpenAI’s value in the private market.
Products like Robinhood’s RVI provide a way into the private market, but statistics suggest it’s getting harder for retail investors to get their hands on hot startups.
World Bank Group data show that the number of publicly traded domestic companies in the United States has been steadily declining from more than 8,000 in 1996 to less than 4,000 in 2025 (5).
Research from investment firm HarbourVest estimates that private and venture-backed markets hold 25 times more companies than the public market, meaning retail investors have fewer opportunities to invest their money in thousands of potential mega-growth engines (6).
Additionally, as companies remain private for longer, they could reach valuations in the billions or even trillions behind closed doors.
As stories of over a billion funding rounds emerge, it’s no surprise that retail investors feel unfairly left out of today’s biggest opportunities, including OpenAI (7). But some financial experts point out that the private market has its dangers.
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In an interview with the New York Times (8), Bank of America global strategist Haim Israel admitted that “a lot of the innovation is actually focused on the private market, and not the public market, and investors in the retail market are missing out.” But Israel warned that there are no “ground rules to protect” retail investors in this space.
Although it may seem restrictive, the public market has well-defined regulations with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that provide high transparency. The private market, however, is another beast. Companies can be more picky about what they disclose, making it difficult to know exactly what you’re investing in.
The relative lack of rules is not just about safety. In practice, it makes it difficult to trade stocks with imprecise prices and lower liquidity. Although the private market is worth about $10 trillion, that’s a pittance compared to the public market’s roughly $87 trillion, according to HarbourVest (9).
There’s even debate over whether the private market actually offers better returns than a tried-and-true S&P 500 ETF.
Sure, if you discover a market leader like OpenAI in its infancy, your portfolio could skyrocket. But overall, Hamilton Lane data found that 10-year time-weighted returns for the private market were actually lower than those for the S&P 500 in 2025 (10).
While it’s human to be envious of the opportunities that private equity firms have, know that things aren’t necessarily greener in the private equity space.
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Open AI (1), (7); Robinhood (2); Business insider information (3); X(4); World Bank Group (5); HarborVest (6), (9); The New York Times (8); Hamilton Lane (10).
This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com with the title: Robinhood App Lets Americans Buy OpenAI, But Bank of America Warns There Are No “Rules to Protect Them”
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