Who owns Webull? Ownership structure explained (2026)

Webull is a commission-free trading app that competes for the same retail investors that made Robinhood famous. It offers stocks, options, exchange-traded funds, and cryptocurrency through a mobile-first platform aimed at active traders, and it has grown to nearly 27 million registered users worldwide. On the surface it looks like an American brokerage: it is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, and its stock trades in New York.

Underneath, its ownership is more complicated. Webull traces its roots to China, was built by a founder who came out of Alibaba and Xiaomi, and still runs a large share of its engineering and operations through a Chinese subsidiary. That structure has made the company a target of state attorneys general, a congressional committee, and US senators who question whether American investor data is safe inside a business with deep China ties.

Understanding who owns Webull matters because the answer sits at the intersection of retail finance and national security. Control of the company rests with one founder, its data touches millions of American accounts, and its future on US exchanges depends partly on how regulators judge its foreign connections.

Webull was founded in 2016 by Wang Anquan, an entrepreneur who previously worked at Alibaba and Xiaomi. He launched the business under Hunan Fumi Information Technology, a China-based financial technology company commonly known as Fumi Technology. The holding entity, Webull Corporation, was incorporated in the Cayman Islands in September 2019, and the group is now headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Its US brokerage arm, Webull Financial LLC, was established as a Delaware company in May 2017 and began offering brokerage services in the United States in 2018. The platform gives retail traders zero-commission access to equities, options, ETFs, fractional shares, and crypto, along with charting and analysis tools pitched at more active users than a typical beginner app. Those tools help traders evaluate holdings on metrics like a stock's dividend yield.

Webull reported $571.0 million in total revenue for 2025, up from $390.2 million in 2024. Payment for order flow, the practice of routing customer trades to market makers in exchange for rebates, generated $304.1 million, or about 53% of revenue. The company ended 2025 with 26.8 million registered users and $24.6 billion in customer assets. Its market capitalization stood near $4.4 billion in August 2026.

Webull is a public company. Its Class A shares trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker BULL, following a business combination completed on April 10, 2025. Trading began the next day. Unlike a standard IPO, the listing came through a reverse merger with SK Growth Opportunities Corporation, a blank-check company that raised cash specifically to take a private business public.

Webull uses a dual-class share structure that concentrates control in its founder. As of March 31, 2026, Wang Anquan controlled approximately 79.2% of the company's voting power, according to Webull's own disclosures. That figure reflects high-vote founder shares rather than a matching share of the economic value. Public filings confirm his voting dominance, while the precise economic percentages held by each early investor are not broken out in full detail.

This arrangement means that even as a public company, Webull is effectively founder-controlled. Outside shareholders who bought BULL stock hold economic exposure but limited say over major decisions.

Before listing, Webull raised a relatively modest amount of venture capital compared with rivals. The rounds below reflect the most widely reported figures. Some early Chinese rounds were not fully disclosed.

The February 2021 Series C made Webull a unicorn, valuing it at roughly $1 billion. The 2025 SPAC deal implied a far higher enterprise value of about $7.3 billion, but heavy shareholder redemptions from the SPAC trust left the combined company with only a few hundred thousand dollars in net cash proceeds. The valuation on paper and the cash that actually arrived were very different numbers.

General Atlantic, a global growth-equity firm, was one of Webull's most prominent backers and helped lead the Series C round that pushed the company to unicorn status.

Coatue Management, a technology-focused investment firm, was named among Webull's blue-chip shareholders at the time of the SPAC announcement, alongside General Atlantic and other global funds.

Lightspeed Venture Partners co-led the Series C and remained an early institutional holder through the company's private years.

J. Rothschild Capital Management and Gopher Asset Management were also cited among Webull's shareholder base, reflecting a mix of Western growth investors and Asia-linked funds. Webull's roots in the Xiaomi ecosystem run through its founder, who worked at the Chinese electronics maker before starting the company, and Xiaomi-affiliated capital has been associated with the broader Fumi orbit.

Wang Anquan, who also uses the name Anthony Wang, is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Webull. He holds a computer science background from Hunan University and worked at Alibaba and Xiaomi before founding the company in 2016. Through the dual-class structure, he controls close to 80% of the voting power, making him the decisive figure in every major corporate decision.

Anthony Denier is Webull's group president, a role expanded in January 2024. Denier is the most visible executive in the company's US operations and its public communications with American investors and media. He runs the commercial side of the business while Wang retains ultimate control.

Webull's board is chaired by Wang Anquan. A defining feature of the company is that much of its actual work happens in China. Its subsidiary Hunan Weibu Information Technology employed 863 people as of December 31, 2025, roughly 62% of Webull's total workforce. Earlier contractual arrangements with Hunan Fumi were terminated in August 2022 as the company restructured ahead of going public, but its operational center of gravity remains partly in China.

In April 2024, a group of 14 state attorneys general launched an inquiry into Webull over its handling of US customer data and its historical ownership and operations in China. The brokerage collects sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, bank details, and home addresses, which raised concerns about where that data flows given the company's Chinese workforce.

In November 2024, the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent Webull information requests about its ties to China. US senators, including Rick Scott, Tommy Tuberville, and Tom Cotton, later pressed the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Webull and consider whether its China connections warrant delisting. The pressure intensified into 2025 under the incoming administration, and news of delisting risk periodically moved the stock. This scrutiny mirrors the pressure faced by other China-linked platforms such as TikTok.

In June 2024, Tennessee banned Webull from government-issued devices, treating the app similarly to other China-linked software that state governments have restricted. The move was symbolic in scale but reinforced the perception that Webull carries the same data-security baggage as apps like Temu.

As a newly public company, Webull's stock has been volatile. Its market value fell well below the enterprise value implied by the SPAC deal, and equity financing steps taken after listing raised dilution concerns among shareholders. The gap between the headline valuation and the trading value underscores how thin the SPAC's net proceeds were once redemptions were counted.

Webull's ownership structure concentrates power in one person. With roughly 80% of the voting rights, Wang Anquan can steer strategy, capital allocation, and any response to regulators largely on his own terms. Public shareholders who buy BULL are minority economic partners with little governance leverage, a common feature of founder-controlled listings but a sharper one here because of the regulatory backdrop.

The China connection is the central issue. Webull competes head-to-head with Robinhood for American retail traders, and it earns most of its money the same way, through payment for order flow. But unlike its US-born rival, Webull runs the majority of its workforce out of a Chinese subsidiary and was built by a founder with an Alibaba and Xiaomi background. That heritage, similar to the scrutiny that has followed Alibaba itself in US markets, turns an ordinary brokerage into a national-security question.

For investors, ownership shapes risk. Anyone modeling a potential return on investment in BULL has to price in a regulatory overhang that ordinary brokerages do not carry. A delisting or forced restructuring driven by regulators would hit shareholders directly, and that possibility is tied entirely to the company's foreign ownership and operations rather than its trading fundamentals. The same data-security concerns that shadow other retail-finance and crypto platforms like Coinbase are amplified for Webull by its China ties.

For users, ownership matters because it determines who ultimately controls their financial data. Webull operates under US brokerage regulation and holds customer assets subject to American rules, but the location of its engineering and support staff keeps the question of data flows alive. Ownership, not marketing, decides where accountability sits.

Wang Anquan, also known as Anthony Wang, is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Webull. He founded the company in 2016 and controls close to 80% of its voting power through a dual-class share structure. Anthony Denier serves as group president and leads the company's US-facing operations.

Yes. Webull trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker BULL. It became public on April 10, 2025, through a merger with SK Growth Opportunities Corporation, a special-purpose acquisition company, rather than a conventional IPO.

Webull was founded in 2016 by Wang Anquan, a former Alibaba and Xiaomi engineer, under the Chinese fintech parent Hunan Fumi Information Technology, known as Fumi Technology. The US brokerage arm, Webull Financial LLC, was set up in Delaware in 2017.

Founder Wang Anquan holds the dominant position, controlling roughly 79% of the voting power as of early 2026. Major institutional backers from its private years include General Atlantic, Coatue Management, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with J. Rothschild Capital Management and Gopher Asset Management.

Webull raised roughly $194 million across its venture rounds, including a $150 million Series C in February 2021 that valued it at about $1 billion. Its 2025 SPAC merger implied an enterprise value near $7.3 billion, though heavy redemptions left minimal net cash. By August 2026 its market capitalization had fallen to about $4.4 billion.

Webull has drawn inquiries from 14 state attorneys general, the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and several senators over its China ties and handling of US customer data. Most of its workforce sits in a Chinese subsidiary, and critics argue that exposes American investor data to risk, with some lawmakers urging the SEC to consider delisting.