Airbnb raising $850M at a $30B valuation

Latest funding comes on heels of $1B debt financing to fuel expansion

Airbnb homepage
Airbnb homepage

Short-term rental giant Airbnb is making a reservation: for $850 million in financing to further its expansion.

The equity round — first reported in June, but now official thanks to a new regulatory disclosure — would give the company a valuation of $30 billion, Bloomberg reported. And it would bring the total equity raised by the San Francisco-based company to $3.2 billion, according to the private stock market company Equidate.
The filing does not identify the investors in the latest round.

Most recently, Airbnb raised $1.6 billion at a $25.6 billion valuation in July 2015.

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In June, the company was said to be in talks for a new funding round that would triple its valuation in two years.  Also in June, Airbnb raised $1 billion in debt to finance an international expansion and a push into new business lines. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley participated in the financing.

Despite its popularity — among both investors and users, it would seem — the home-sharing company has faced backlash in New York, where state law does not allow short-term rentals of less than 30 days.

In New York City, about 8 percent to 17 percent of all Airbnb listings were operated as commercial units, according to a back-of-the-envelope analysis by The Real Deal in 2015.  Earlier this month, Airbnb released data claiming that 4.5 percent of its users in New York City were so-called “multi-hosts,” up from 3.5 percent last year. The firm said it removed 1,500 multi-host listings late last year. [Bloomberg]E.B. Solomont