Airbnb

Airbnb began in October 2007 when roommates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, unable to afford San Francisco rent, put air mattresses in their apartment's living room and hosted attendees of a design conference, coining the idea of 'AirBed & Breakfast.' Nathan Blecharczyk, a Harvard-trained software engineer, joined as technical co-founder in early 2008 and the trio built AirBedandBreakfast.com, launching publicly around the August 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, funding the struggling startup by selling novelty election-themed cereal boxes for roughly $30,000. After early struggles, the founders were accepted into Y Combinator's winter 2009 class, receiving a $20,000 investment, before closing a $600,000 seed round led by Sequoia Capital in April 2009. The company rebranded to Airbnb and scaled rapidly through the 2010s, raising successive large venture rounds from investors including Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, General Catalyst, TPG, General Atlantic, Hillhouse Capital, Tiger Global, and TCV, reaching a peak private valuation of roughly $31 billion in 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic devastated travel demand in 2020, forcing Airbnb to lay off about 25% of its workforce and raise emergency financing from Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners at a reduced ~$18 billion valuation. Despite this, a rapid recovery fueled a strong rebound, and Airbnb went public on the Nasdaq on December 10, 2020 (ticker ABNB), pricing its IPO at $68/share (a ~$47 billion fully diluted valuation) and more than doubling on its first day of trading. Since the IPO, Airbnb has been consistently profitable, generating billions in free cash flow, and has pursued platform diversification — including permanently banning parties (2022), launching a co-host network (2024), and in 2025 relaunching Experiences and introducing Airbnb Services and Airbnb Hotels as part of CEO Brian Chesky's strategy to make Airbnb an 'everything app' for travel and daily life. As of mid-2026 Airbnb has a market capitalization of roughly $108 billion, around 8,200 employees, and continues to be led by co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky.

Business model

Two-sided online marketplace (platform/aggregator) connecting hosts with guests; Airbnb does not own the underlying inventory.

Commission/service fees charged to guests and hosts on each completed booking of a home, hotel room, Experience, or Service, plus ancillary fees.