Airbnb on screen. Image: mirtmirt/Shutterstock
Airbnb has raised another $1bn, surpassing its $30bn valuation mark, but it still has no plans for an IPO any time soon.
2016 turned out to be quite a successful year for the accommodation sharing platform Airbnb, with a profitable return on the second half in particular, and similar success expected in the first half of 2017.
According to TechCrunch, this included the company raising a total of $1bn in two separate funding rounds, amounting to $555.5m in Series D and an additional $447.8m in Series F.
Airbnb has now surpassed the $30bn valuation self-attributed to the company in the beginning of the Series F funding round.
It brings its total funding to nearly $5bn since it was founded in 2008 by Nathan Blecharczyk, Joe Gebbia, Brian Chesky.
Investors for this round appear to be from the firm Andreessen Horowitz, following on from the previous announcement of Series F funding from Google Capital and TCV last September.
Sources within the company said that even with this new valuation, there is no IPO in sight, despite expectations that 2017 would be the year.
New services springing up
In the meantime, the Airbnb range of services has expanded in the past few months alone into other areas such as tourism, whereby people planning to visit a particular area of a city can book ‘experiences’ through the website.
These include tickets to music gigs or yoga sessions, which can be booked in the same way that a user would reserve accommodation.
Airbnb has even created companies in its wake such as Airsorted, the brainchild of London-based entrepreneur James Jenkins-Yates, who became an Airbnb host after leaving a well-paid job in finance and will now test the service in Dublin.
Realising the lack of home upkeep for Airbnb hosts, Airsorted is a marketplace serving the needs of those who want to make the income from their properties, but aren’t keen on the necessary laundry and cleaning responsibilities that come with it.
Airbnb on screen. Image: mirtmirt/Shutterstock
