“When the market is ready, we will be ready,”- CEO, Brian Chesky
Even though 2020 has been impeccably bad timing for IPOs the Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said to be still considering an IPO in 2020. While after the stock market rebounded back many companies are now rushing to go public including Robinhood, Door Dash and Airbnb . Airbnb said the IPO decision came after the company booked more than 1 million nights in a single day for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
Airbnb stands for Air Bed and Breakfast; it is an online marketplace for short-term rentals and experiences. The company was founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nate Blecharczyk. They are now in over 81,000 cities with 6 million properties listed on their home-sharing website.
“We had to put it on the shelf a little bit because we had a bit of fire-fighting to do. We’ve now kind of dusted that off. And we’re back to working and being prepared.” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said. “We also don’t want to go public if the world’s not ready for us, if people are really nervous about travel if they aren’t really clear about Airbnb, then the market’s not ready” he added.
Airbnb’s business has been hit hard by coronavirus, the company abruptly halted online advertising to cut costs. Airbnb has lost around 16% of its pre-coronavirus value of $US31 billion. The San Francisco-based company recently laid off 1900 of its 7500 employees. While Airbnb has shown some small signs of a rebound since then, reporting in June that bookings had surged as some travel resumed. “Our business has not recovered, but we are seeing encouraging signs,” the company said.
When can we expect the Airbnb IPO?
The company had previously scheduled its IPO to March but set aside those plans after the company raised an additional $2 billion in funding during the pandemic and started cutting costs across its operations. According to Reuters, Airbnb, valued by investors at $31 billion before the pandemic, has received offers to go public through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
“We’re not ruling it out this year, but we’re definitely not committing to a timeline right now,” Chesky said. “We’re still a little early in this crisis for me to feel clear enough about how this is going to play out.”