Robinhood announced Tuesday (August 10) that it has signed an agreement to acquire investment communication platform Say Technologies for about $140 million as an all-cash deal, subject to customary purchase price adjustments.
“Like Robinhood, Say was built on the belief that everyone should have the same access to the financial markets as Wall Street insiders,” the Robinhood announcement said. “We share a common goal of eliminating the barriers that keep people from participating in our financial system.”
Read More: Say Technologies is Joining Robinhood
“Say’s proxy processing technology helps broker-dealers give their customers seamless access to their vote,” the announcement said. Its Q&A portal “lets everyday shareholders participate in events like earnings by asking and upvoting questions.”
Robinhood and Say will retain Say’s proxy voting service and Q&A platform for current customers while working together on new products to give investors access they never have before.
“We founded Say to give investors a better way to engage with the companies they own, and to give companies tools to better understand and access their investors,” said Alex Lebow, co-founder and CEO of Say Technologies, in a joint announcement.
“As part of the Robinhood family, we’ll be able to further our goal of creating a new ecosystem of ownership and engagement to benefit all investors and companies,” Lebow said.
Related: Robinhood Closes 8 Pct Down On First Trading Day
Robinhood was established in 2013 as a portal to free online trading, an approach that forced the brokerage industry to eliminate commissions on retail trades. That meant large groups of new traders decided to try their hand at playing the stock market.
PYMNTS previously reported that young investors and digital currency enthusiasts are Robinhood’s primary customers, according to its SEC S-1 filing, and that four out of five new accounts opened in 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 came through the Robinhood Referral initiative.
Also Read: Robinhood’s S-1 Shows Continued Surge In Retail Investing As Accounts Grow By 151 Pct
That’s nothing new. From January 2015 through the end of March 2021, more than half of Robinhood customers were using their first brokerage accounts.
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