Wow — Robinhood is offering access to a hot opportunity:
The chance to buy shares of health-tech startup Oura at the IPO.
Great news, right? Not so fast…
Investing at the IPO might feel like getting in on the ground floor. But these days, it’s too late.
Let me show you what I mean — then show you how to invest on the real ground floor.
Robinhood Takes on a New Role
Robinhood (HOOD) is a major success story.
It grew to a market cap of $100 billion by making it easy for ordinary investors to access the stock market from their phones.
Now it’s offering investors access to hot IPOs.
You see, Robinhood was chosen as an underwriter for Oura, maker of the popular smart ring. The company is targeting a valuation of up to $16 billion when it goes public.
As an underwriter, Robinhood can get more IPO shares into the hands of customers like you. Historically, these shares were reserved for big institutions and wealthy investors. This move is being hailed as step toward leveling the playing field.
But before you put in your “Buy” order, read this carefully…
The Mistake IPO Investors Make
Many investors think an IPO is a chance to get in early — to set themselves up to earn the lion’s share of a company’s returns.
Decades ago, that was largely true. Companies tended to go public much earlier in their lifecycles. That meant plenty of growth and profits were ahead of them.
Today, the situation has flipped. And if you’re waiting until the IPO to invest, you could be leaving a fortune on the table. Take a look:
This chart, from venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, shows a major shift in the type of investor that’s capturing the biggest returns.
For each company (Apple, Amazon, etc.), the grey part of each bar reflects profits captured by stock-market investors. The orange shows profits captured by private investors.
For years, public investors reaped the bulk of a company’s returns. For example, look at Microsoft (the second bar). When it went public in 1986, its early private investors could have cashed out for about 200x at the IPO. Solid.
But after it went public, stock-market investors could have made far more than that. As of about April 2025, they could have made about 5,000x their money — enough to turn $1,000 into $5 million.
Furthermore, prior to 2004, stock-market investors also did well in companies like Apple, Oracle, and Amazon. But look what’s happening more recently:
Time and again, from Google to LinkedIn to Twitter (now X), private-market investors made hundreds of times their money. Meanwhile, public-market investors made peanuts.
Why the shift? One reason is that companies are staying private longer. In the 1980s, companies went public after about four years. Today, companies are staying private for about sixteen years.
If companies are staying private longer, that means more of their growth is happening in the private market. It also means that more of their profits are going to private investors.
Turning $10k into $14 Million
Oura is a perfect example. The company was founded in 2013. Two years later, early investors got in at a valuation of just $11 million.
Now Oura is finally going public — at a valuation of $16 billion.
Think about that. Robinhood investors are being offered the chance to “get in early” on Oura at $16 billion. Meanwhile, Oura’s earliest investors got in at $11 million, so they’re already up 1,400x their money. That’s enough to turn $10,000 into $14 million!
That’s what getting in early really looks like.
The takeaway here is simple: the lion’s share of the returns from today’s biggest technology companies are being captured while they’re still private.
So if you’re looking for potentially life-changing returns, the IPO is too late.
To get in on the real ground floor, you need to get in while these companies are still private!
Your All-Access Pass
Crowdability gives investors like you access to private investment opportunities — when companies are still at their earliest stages, when the potential for profits is the greatest.
Every Monday, for example, we send you our Deals email. It highlights a handful of private companies raising money from ordinary investors.
And if you’d like to increase your odds of success, there’s Private Market Profits, our premium-research service.
Each month, we sift through hundreds of private-market opportunities to identify the ones we believe offer the most compelling profit potential. We’re talking a minimum of 10x your money.
Robinhood deserves credit for helping ordinary investors get better access to IPOs.
But while the IPO might feel like the ground floor, the biggest fortunes have already been made by those who got in much earlier — when these companies were still startups.
Happy investing.
