AAA Airbnb angles towards 2020 listing

Airbnb angles towards 2020 listing

Airbnb, the US-based short-term accommodation platform backed by internet and technology group Alphabet, intends to list its shares on a public market in 2020, it said yesterday.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb runs an online platform where users can rent out rooms or complete properties to each other for short-term use. It currently has more than 7 million listings on its platform covering 100,000 towns and cities across the world.

The company did not offer additional details of its plans but Recode reported in December 2018 that both it and messaging platform Slack were considering direct listings, where no new shares are issued but existing shareholders have the chance to divest stock. Slack has since indeed opted for a direct listing.

Airbnb generated more than $1bn in revenue in the first half of 2019, it said this week, and has declared positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation in both 2017 and 2018. It was valued at $31bn as of its last round, a $1bn series F that closed in 2017.

The series F round increased Airbnb’s overall equity funding to $3.4bn and included Alphabet unit CapitalG, growth equity firm TCV and sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp.

Other investors that could exit include Fidelity Investments, General Atlantic, Hillhouse Capital, Tiger Global Management, Temasek, Kleiner Perkins, GGV Capital, China Broadband Capital, Horizon Ventures, Wellington Management, Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe Price, TPG, Dragoneer, DST Global, Founders Fund, Firstmark Capital, Sequoia Capital, Tuesday Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners, Y Combinator and SV Angel.

By Robert Lavine

Robert Lavine is special features editor for Global Venturing.

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