Interesting article
The Age: Airbnb said it plans to go public in 2020, a long-awaited move by the home-sharing company that is both loved and reviled for its disruption of the hotel business.Airbnb disclosed the news in a brief statement. It didn't give a target date for the initial public offering or say why it thinks the timing is right. Airbnb was valued at $US31 billion ($46 billion) last year, according to Renaissance Capital, which researches IPOs.
Co-founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia needed some extra cash, so they put three air mattresses on their apartment floor and set up a website promising a place to sleep and a free breakfast. They named their new venture AirBed and Breakfast.Since then, Airbnb has grown into one of the world's largest home-sharing platforms, rivalled only by Booking.com. Six guests check into an Airbnb every second, the company says. Airbnb has more than 7 million listings in 100,000 cities worldwide. Nearly 1,000 cities have more than 1,000 Airbnb listings. In 2011, only 12 cities did.AdvertisementAirbnb has said it was profitable on a pretax basis in 2018 and 2017, but it didn't release specific numbers. The company said it made "substantially more than" $US1 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year, the second time in its history that quarterly revenue topped $US1 billion. Airbnb didn't say whether it made a quarterly profit.
FYI - this is just to give some cornerstone rev multiples and valuation comparison
Multiple is 46x
... as soon as ISX hits 23m profit they are within that 46x multiple
... trying to say this in a positive way.
from The Age
