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Public.com | |
Company type | Privately held company |
Industry | Financial services |
Founded | 2019 |
Founders | Leif Abraham Jannick Malling |
Headquarters | New York City, United States |
Products | Electronic trading platform |
Services | Stockbroker |
Number of employees | 150+ |
Website | public |
Public Holdings, Inc. (doing business as Public or Public.com) is an American financial technology company headquartered in New York City that offers an electronic trading platform to trade financial assets.
Public was launched in 2019 by Leif Abraham and Jannick Malling. [1]
In February 2021, Public announced the discontinuation of payment for order flow (PFOF) as a revenue source for equities trades, instead asking customers for gratuities. [1] [2] That month, the company launched advertising featuring Michael Bolton singing a revised version of his song "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" targeting PFOF. [3]
In October 2021, Public began offering trading in cryptocurrency, initially launching with ten coins and tokens, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. [4] In July 2023, Public launched in the United Kingdom. [5]
In December 2023, the platform began offering trading in bonds, becoming the first to offer fractional bond investments. [6] It also launched a Treasury account feature that was meant to simplify the process of buying T-bills. [7]
In January 2024, Public launched options trading with a rebate offering that reduced members' transaction costs to below $0. [8] In August, Public launched an automated account that allows people to invest in 10 corporate bonds to lock in yields higher than what Treasurys are offering. [7]
In November 2024, Public launched margin investing for its users. [9] In October 2025, Public launched direct indexing for retail investors with a minimum investment of $1,000. [10]
In January 2022, Public acquired Hypercharts, a stock-data visualization platform. [11] In March, it acquired Otis, a platform that allowed members to invest in fractional shares of alternative assets such as fine art and collectibles. [12]
In April 2024, Public acquired the TradeApp brokerage accounts from Stocktwits. [13] In August, Public acquired Carta's startup stock marketplace accounts; Carta had faced backlash for using private data to broker a sale of one of its customers. [14]
In March 2020, the company raised a $15 million Series B round led by Accel and Greycroft, with participation from Dreamers VC, founded by Will Smith and Keisuke Honda; J.J. Watt; Shari Redstone's Advancit Capital; Sophia Amoruso, Casey Neistat; Scott Belsky, and Morgan DeBaun. [15]
In December 2020, the company raised a $65 million Series C round led by Accel and including Lakestar Greycroft, Shari Redstone's Advancit Capital as well as Tony Hawk and the Chainsmokers, through their Mantis venture capital fund. [16]
In February 2021, the company raised $220 million at a $1.2 billion valuation from existing investors including Greycroft, Accel, Tiger Global Management, and Inspired Capital. [17]