Airbnb IPO Update: Unicorn Says It Will Go Public Next Year

Home-sharing giant Airbnb announced Thursday it plans to take itself public next year in what could be one of the most high-profile unicorn market debuts of 2020.

The announcement was made in a brief statement on the company’s website.

Airbnb reported revenue of more than $1 billion Wednesday for the second quarter but gave no other details on profitability. Previously it reported positive results for 2017 and 2018, totaling more than $2.5 billion in 2017, 50% more than its 2016 results.

The company has been valued privately at $31 billion and earlier this year collected $35 billion from a private share sale. It was the first round of funding since it raised $1 billion in March 2017. Airbnb priced its equity at $120 a share in a 409a filing when it bought HotelTonight for $450 million in May.

The announcement came just days after WeWork postponed its planned IPO because of falling valuations. Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT) made their Wall Street debuts earlier this year but have since seen share prices dip as investors became disillusioned over their lack of profitability. Lyft shares have lost more than 40% while Uber stock is down nearly 20%.

Airbnb is one of the largest home-sharing platforms with more than 7 million listings in 100,000 cities worldwide.

Investors are hoping that before going public, Airbnb works out its differences with New York City, which changed its municipal code in 2010 to prohibit apartment rentals of less than 30 days without the legal tenant being present, effectively limiting short-term rentals to spare bedrooms or one- and two-family homes.

Though the company has negotiated agreements with 500 cities, New York has been actively hunting down people who put their whole apartments up for short-term rentals and subpoenaed the company for the addresses of more than 17,000 “hosts” it deems are operating illegal rentals.

“The more legal Airbnb can be, the more confident investors will be in the IPO. New York is obviously a kind of bellwether market for them,” Andrew Rasiej, chairman emeritus of New York Tech Alliance, told Bloomberg Businessweek.