Home rental service and unofficial sharing economy mascot Airbnb has made its $1.5 billion funding round official in an SEC document today. The Wall Street Journal first reported news of the equity offering back in June, writing that it set the company’s value at more than $25 billion.
Airbnb Officially Confirms Gargantuan $1.5 Billion Funding Round in SEC Filing
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news in June.
HBO
The round makes Airbnb the third-most valuable privately held tech company in the world, after Uber (worth $62.5 billion) and the Chinese phone maker Xiaomi (valued at around $45 billion). Airbnb’s lead investors in this round were reportedly General Atlantic, Hillhouse Capital Group and Tiger Global Management, which together composed a third of the Airbnb shares sold.
Airbnb is raising giant sums like this and putting off an IPO because the startup — like other highly-valued darlings of Silicon Valley — wants to put its resources into emerging markets around the world, especially China. The company is also busy putting out political fires in its more well-saturated markets like San Francisco and New York City, and is in the process of building a (likely expensive) global political organizing operation to protect its revenue streams.
Onstage at the Code Conference earlier this year, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said that he thinks an IPO is still a couple years away. Airbnb declined to comment for this story.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
