Airbnb Increases IPO Price Range Ahead Of Public Debut

Airbnb has bumped up its initial public offering price range, targeting a $42 billion valuation.

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The company has set an increased price range of between $56 and $60 per share, up from $44 to $50. The price range increase was first reported by The Wall Street Journal Sunday and disclosed in a regulatory filing on Monday.

Airbnb intends to sell 50 million shares of Class A common stock, and some of the company’s stockholders also will be selling shares, bringing the number of shares offered to nearly 51.6 million. If Airbnb prices at the top of its range, it would raise more than $3 billion through its IPO and have a fully diluted valuation of $42 billion and set to be one of the largest IPOs of the year. Only Snowflake, which went public in the largest ever software IPO, would rival Airbnb. Snowflake raised $3.36 billion through its IPO and reached a valuation of $33.2 billion.

The San Francisco-based company’s IPO caps a busy year companies making their public debuts. While the COVID-19 pandemic stalled the tech IPO market for a bit in the spring, venture-backed tech companies started filing to go public in the summer, leading to a busy fall. 

Arguably the most anticipated IPO of the year is Airbnb, which said pre-pandemic that it intended to go public this year. While some wondered if an IPO was still in the cards when the pandemic hit the travel industry hard, Airbnb pushed forward and filed a confidential S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August. 

The company wasn’t without its struggles though–Airbnb laid off a quarter of its employees and saw its revenue take a hit. It rushed to raise $1 billion from investors Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners earlier this year, along with $1 billion in debt. Airbnb saw some recovery as it focused on local travel.

Airbnb is among other big names to go public in December, including DoorDash, Wish and Roblox. The company is set to start trading on the Nasdaq Thursday under the ticker ABNB. 

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

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