Trade Republic has raised one of the biggest fintech rounds in European history after securing $750m in fresh funding. The German trading app is also now valued at $5.3bn, soaring from its $600m price tag just last April.

The Series C round is being led by Sequoia, the US venture firm that counts Google and Apple in its portfolio, and recently opened an office in London.

Sequoia is also an investor in Robinhood, the US trading app with 13m users that Trade Republic modelled itself on, as a low-commission, smartphone-based broker.

Robinhood put plans to expand into Europe on hold last year, but has not ruled it out in the long-term, leading one fintech founder to call the Sequoia investment in a potential competitor “really awkward.”

Aside from Sequoia, US-based firms TCV and Thrive also financed the round, alongside all existing investors including Creandum, Accel, Project A, and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

Meanwhile, early backer Sino has cashed in $150m in a secondary sale, with the new investors scooping up their stake. That takes the total monetary exchange for the round up to $900m.

Founded in 2015, Trade Republic is now live in Germany, Austria and France, and has hit the 1m user milestone, as well as over $6bn in assets under management.

It is now one of the largest brokers in Germany. However, the company does not publicly disclose its financials, and its revenues are unknown.

Making a splash

Trade Republic has grown wildly in the past year, download data shows, buoyed by market frenzies like the Gamestop saga.

It has recently started expanding its feature pool too, including offering bitcoin alongside stocks.

The fintech is one of several newcomers looking to lure scores of customers away from incumbent brokers in Europe; in some cases, offering 20x cheaper trading. The European ecosystem now counts the likes of Bux, eToro, Revolut, Freetrade, as well as crypto-only startups like Bitpanda.

One criticism levelled at these fast-growing brokers is whether they are encouraging young (largely male) users to invest without knowing the risks.

Trade Republic’s founders told Sifted earlier this year that it had a big emphasis on “responsible investing,” and was “nothing like Robinhood” in the way it settles trades or has gamified buying stocks.

The VCs, at least, aren’t concerned; so much so that Trade Republic has been notoriously picky about investors in the past. It’s kept a tight cap table, and Accel — a high-profile fund — has previously said that its team had to convince the founders to let them invest.

Sifted and Finance Forward first reported the fundraising news alongside TechCrunch.