Airbnb Expects To Go Public Next Year

Online lodging marketplace Airbnb announced on Thursday (Sept. 19) that it wants to go public by next year, according to a release by the company.

The company has been actively trying to expand in the past few years, and it recently launched a new service for people to not only book lodging, but to give them experiences and tours in cities. It also acquired apartments with furniture marketplace Urbandoor, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Airbnb said that its revenue was more than $1 billion in Q2 of this year, the second time that has happened. First quarter was also good, with $9.4 billion in total booking value, which is up 31 percent from the year prior.

Last year, Airbnb’s revenue went up 40 percent from 2017.

Airbnb had about $3.5 billion in cash on its balance sheet as of March 31 and reported a 40 percent revenue growth rate in 2018 compared with the previous year.

The results show that the company has spent little of the more than $4 billion it has raised in venture funding and debt. Airbnb’s last raise was in 2017, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and General Atlantic. At that time, the company was valued at $31 billion.

The platform recently unveiled its Luxe offering to bolster its luxury travel efforts, which includes more than 2,000 high-end homes. Accommodation prices run from $1,000 to almost $150,000 per night, with an average of roughly $2,000. It even provides guests with an around-the-clock concierge, called a “trip designer,” to help them plan their adventures.

While many of the Luxe listings are rural vacation homes, the platform also has some city listings, such as a Los Angeles French country-style mansion and a cottage in the vicinity of London’s Kensington Palace.

The company also has an Airbnb for Work brand. The “for work” side of the business was initially started as Airbnb for Business, and it makes up about 15 percent of all of the company’s bookings. It’s grown threefold from 2015 to 2016, and the same amount for the next two years. The company said that about 500,000 entities use it to plan corporate travel.