facebookWould you buy into Airbnb stock if they IPO soon? - Seedly

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Anonymous

13 Aug 2020

General Investing

Would you buy into Airbnb stock if they IPO soon?

Saw this headline recently: "Airbnb Still Eyeing The Public Market Despite Pandemic Effect"

Discussion (3)

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Every deal can be done, if the price and terms are right.

I mostly avoid IPOs due to the motivation of such moves - to raise money at the biggest valuation possible. (Smart investors have reached their limits on funding and they want to cashout)

Kenneth Lou

13 Aug 2020

Co-founder at Seedly

Airbnb plans on filing for an initial public offering this month, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. (Source)

Key highlights:

  • This was arguably 2020’s most anticipated tech IPO.

  • But then the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in mid-March, throwing the economy for a loop–especially hammering the travel industry.

  • Airbnb was affected, raising questions if the company would go through with an IPO after all.

Key details:

  • Now a public debut will reportedly still be happening this year.

  • And with Airbnb’s valuation at $18 billion (per the Journal, and down from an earlier valuation of $31 billion)

  • It would be among a small group of companies to go public with such a high valuation in the last five years.

Since 2014, there have only been five U.S.-based venture-backed companies with initial post-public valuations of $10 billion or more*.

Those companies were more or less household names: Uber, Lyft, Slack, Pinterest and Snap.

*Post-IPO valuation reflects valuation before shares begin trading.

Uber

  • Total Funding: $24.7 billion

  • IPO Date: May 9, 2019

  • Valuation At IPO: $82.4 billion

  • IPO Share Price: $45

Lyft

  • Total Funding: $4.9 billion

  • IPO Date: March 29, 2019

  • Valuation At IPO: $24 billion

  • IPO Share Price: $72

Slack

  • Total Funding: $1.4 billion

  • Direct Listing Date: June 20, 2019

  • Valuation: $23 billion

  • Reference Price: $26

Pinterest

  • Total Funding: $1.5 billion

  • IPO Date: April 18, 2019

  • Valuation At IPO: $12.7 billion

  • IPO Share Price: $19

Snap

  • Total Funding: $4.9 billion

  • IPO Date: March 2, 2017

  • Valuation At IPO: $33 billion

  • IPO Share Price: $24

We can’t really speculate what Airbnb’s IPO will look like. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in the world with COVID-19, and that could affect the company’s plans or the public market’s reception to Airbnb. We’ll have more when we can get a look at the company’s S-1 registration document.

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