Airbnb, Inc. announced that it expects to become a publicly-traded company during 2020.
Founded in 2008, Airbnb exists to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere, providing healthy travel that is local, authentic, diverse, inclusive and sustainable. Airbnb uniquely leverages technology to economically empower millions of people around the world to unlock and monetize their spaces, passions, and talents to become hospitality entrepreneurs. Airbnb’s accommodation marketplace provides access to 6+ million unique places to stay in more than 81,000 cities and 191 countries. With Experiences, Airbnb offers unprecedented access to local communities and interests through 25,000+ unique, handcrafted activities run by hosts across 1,000+ markets around the world. Airbnb’s people-to-people platform benefits all its stakeholders, including hosts, guests, employees and the communities in which it operates.
Regarding the company’s planned IPO though, bloomberg.com notes that despite fierce opposition from traditional hoteliers, the home-rental startup has negotiated regulations that have allowed it to operate in more than 500 cities, from San Francisco to Tokyo. Now the company, last privately valued at $31 billion, is gearing up to go public. But it’s hit a wall in New York City, where the rules are stricter and Airbnb’s often aggressive tactics appear to have backfired.
The city forbids short-term rentals of most entire apartments—exactly the arrangement of greatest value to Airbnb and the people, known as hosts, who use its platform to rent their homes. New York boosted its budget to hunt down these illegal listings to about $8 million this year, a tenfold rise in four years, according to documents from the city’s Office of Special Enforcement viewed by Bloomberg Businessweek. The city has subpoenaed Airbnb for the addresses of more than 17,000 hosts it says are operating illegal rentals. And talks between Airbnb’s chief negotiator and his principal adversary have been at a standstill for years.
Bloomberg adds that investors want Airbnb to sort things out with New York before it goes public in 2020, according to three people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is private. The company is working hard to come to terms with the city, one of them says. Failure could cast doubt on Airbnb’s valuation and also lead other cities to tighten laws or otherwise push to renegotiate terms on which companies like Airbnb do business. Airbnb confirmed its intention to go public next year in a statement released after Bloomberg’s report was published on Thursday.
