Zero-commission Robinhood brokerage gets funding

Robinhood

The Robinhood trading app.

Zero-commission brokerage start-up Robinhood said Tuesday it has picked up $13 million in series-A funding from venture capital firm Index Ventures.

The capital infusion would be used to hire engineers and designers and bring the Apple iOS-only app out of beta, co-founders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt told CNBC.

The company, which launched its mobile trading platform earlier this year, also added a number of well-known Silicon Valley names to its board of directors, including Jan Hammer of Index Ventures, Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie, actor and musician Jared Leto and rapper Snoop Dogg, Tenev added.

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Tenev said that the company sought to address an underserved market.

"Of the almost half-million people on the waiting list to use the Robinhood app, 80 percent are between the ages of 18 and 29," he said. "We think this is a very interesting part of the population that has been traditionally underserved by the financial companies."

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The start-up previously received $3 million in seed funding from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Rothenberg Ventures, Tim Draper and Howard Lindzon's Social Leverage.