Airbnb filed paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission today confirming an earlier report that the home-sharing startup had raised a huge $1.5 billion financing round back in June—one of the largest private funding rounds ever. (Uber is reportedly seeking to raise $2.1 billion.) Not only is $1.5 billion a massive amount of money, it solidifies Airbnb’s position as the world’s third most valuable privately held startup, just behind Uber (valued at $62.5 billion) and Xiaomi ($46 billion).
As expected, Airbnb declined to include its revenue range in its filing with the SEC. But according to an investor presentation reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the home-sharing startup generated $340 million in revenue in the third quarter on bookings of $2.2 billion. It’s also headed for $900 million in revenue for 2015, according to the WSJ, even better than the projection of $825 million it told investors it was expecting during the July fundraising round.
Which seems like great news for Airbnb, especially in a climate of increasing market skepticism when it comes to scrutinizing tech startups that some say are prodigiously overvalued. Snapchat and Dropbox have been subject to investor wariness in past weeks, with mutual funds Fidelity and Blackrock marking down the value of their stakes in the late-stage startups. In a surprising contrast, Jack Dorsey’s electronic payments startup Square saw its shares pop in their debut in the public market after lowballing its price per share—signaling that at least some in the market still have some confidence in so-called unicorns, or multi-billion dollar startups.
It’s unclear that the same kind of investor confidence has applied to Airbnb, given that this round of funding supposedly closed back in June. But with the company still handily beating expectations, Airbnb’s backers must still be feeling pretty good about their choices.
