Mark Hipperson, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of London-based cryptocurrency portfolio investment platform, Ziglu, has given up his role as the CEO of the company. This happened days after Robinhood terminated its deal to acquire his company.
Hipperson announced his resignation on Monday through LinkedIn. He has been running the company as CEO since September 2018. However, he remains with the company as a Non-Executive Director and shareholder.
“Today, I am announcing my resignation as CEO of Ziglu, a company that I founded back in 2018 and launched in June 2020. Over the past few years, I have been fortunate enough to lead this dynamic fintech through a period of remarkable growth and achievement. Despite the recent collapse of the Robinhood deal, I am proud of what the team and I have accomplished, and I know that Ziglu has a bright future ahead,” Hipperson wrote on LinkedIn.
In April last year, Robinhood, a US-based commission-free stock trading and investing app, announced plans to acquire Ziglu in its bid to reenter the UK after shelving the plan a year earlier. Months later (August), Robinhood attempted to cut down the price of the acquisition by 57% from $170 million to $72.5 million, citing market conditions. However, earlier this month, Robinhood cancelled the deal, suggesting that both companies could not come to a compromise.
Robinhood Sees Lower Crypto Revenue in Q4 2022
The cancellation of the deal with Ziglu comes as lower cryptocurrency trading volumes in recent months rattled Robinhood's revenue from digital asset trading on its platform. The neobroker’s crypto revenue worsened from its third quarter outing, dropping by 24% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) to $39 million during Q4 2022.
However, the US company saw a 5% increase in its total net revenue during the quarter as the figure reached $380 million despite an 11% decrease in its transaction-based revenues. The transaction-based revenue declined to $186 million.
In a different development, Robinhood’s Board recently approved the repurchase of the 55 million Robinhood shares that Sam Bankman-Fried- controlled Emergent Fidelity Technologies bought in May last year.
Meanwhile, Finance Magnates reports that a US judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Robinhood of misleading retail investors during an initial public offering (IPO) almost two years ago. Moreover, Judge Edward Chen dismissed charges against Vladimir Tenev, Robinhood’s CEO, and the IPO underwriters led by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.
