History
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 Ether. [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 2024, 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]
Acquisitions
In January 2022, Public acquired Hypercharts, a stock-data visualization platform. [9]
In March 2022, it acquired Otis, a platform that allowed members to invest in fractional shares of alternative assets such as fine art and collectibles. [10]
In April 2024, Public acquired the TradeApp brokerage accounts from Stocktwits. [11]
In August 2024, 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. [12]
Financing
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. [13]
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. [14]
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. [15]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
