Airbnb Seeks To Be Ready For IPO In 2019

As Airbnb builds up a larger profile in the travel space, the home share marketplace is eyeing an initial public offering (IPO). The company wants to be ready to go public on June 30 of next year and aims to have an IPO before 2020, according to reports.

At the same time, Airbnb has also created a bonus program to offer employees cash bonuses in 2018 and 2019. In addition, the company has reportedly gotten rid of a one-year equity grant vesting cliff. And Airbnb has added choices for compensation in the future: Employees reportedly have the option to take refresh grants in cash in lieu of shares.

In terms of hiring, Airbnb is still looking for two executives – a new CMO and a new CFO – as well as additional independent board members. (Former CFO Lawrence Tosi departed the company in February, and Jonathan Mildenhall left the CMO position a few months later in May.)

The news comes as Silicon Valley is preparing for a slew of new initial public offerings, as some of the well-known and most highly-valued technology startups will go public during the next year-and-a-half to two years. According to an April report in The New York Times citing investors, bankers and analysts, the expected wave of IPOs out of some Silicon Valley’s greatest startups comes after a handful of companies have been able to garner huge valuations as they waited for the ideal time to tap the public markets via an IPO.

The New York Times pointed to the IPO of Dropbox, the online file storage company, and Spotify, the music streaming service, which happened in 2018 and were both successful IPOs. The paper noted that tech companies have raised more than $7 billion in 2018 from IPOs. That’s more than 2015 and 2016 combined and more than half the $13 billion raised in 2017, noted the NYT, citing Dealogic, the market data company.