Would you buy into Airbnb stock if they IPO soon?

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)

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.