Airbnb should be ready for an IPO next year, says CEO

Aurel Dragan 31/05/2018 | 14:45

In search for the certified unicorn investors are waiting for Airbnb to launch an IPO and become public. The company already has billions of dollars in revenues and it is profitable so many wonder when will the home-sharing company go public. The company CEO Brian Chesky said the company “will be ready to IPO next year, but I don’t know if we will”, according to Techcrunch.com.

Not being ready for an IPO on the founders side means that they are not interested in an exit or a capitalization of their business. Chescky added that he wants to make sure it’s a major benefit to the company when Airbnb does go public.

Meanwhile, Airbnb is struggling from a regulatory standpoint since 2010, pretty much the way Uber is or any other disruptive business. In New York, for example, the company is in a standstill since 2010 and there is not an end in sight, in the battle being involved the hotel industry and the unions.

Airbnb Experiences sees 1.5 million bookings a year, according to Chesky. Experiences, which Airbnb started testing in 2014 and officially launched in 2016, is Airbnb’s product that helps travelers find things to do in cities throughout the world.

When it first launched, Airbnb didn’t verify the experiences, but after some bad experiences, Airbnb has started verifying them. “They’re doing incredibly well,” Chesky said. He added that the “experience economy” is growing and “there will probably be a massive economy around experiences.”