The story
Founded by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk in 2008.1
In October 2007, in San Francisco, California, to help fund their rent payments, roommates and former schoolmates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia came up with an idea of putting an air mattress in their living room and turning it into a bed and breakfast during a conference held by the Industrial Designers Society of America, when travelers had a hard time finding lodging in the city. After the idea was very successful, the pair realized that they had a possible business idea. In February 2008, Nathan Blecharczyk, Chesky's former roommate, joined as the chief technology officer and the third co-founder of the new venture, which they named "AirBed & Breakfast". They put together a website that offered short-term living quarters and breakfast for those who were unable to book a hotel in the saturated market. The site Airbedandbreakfast.com was launched on August 11, 2008.
After the founders raised $30,000 by selling cereal named after the two candidates of the 2008 United States presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain, mostly at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, computer programmer Paul Graham invited the founders to the January 2009 winter training session of his startup incubator, Y Combinator, which provided them with training and $20,000 in funding in exchange for a 6% interest in the company. With the website already built, they used the Y Combinator investment to fly to New York to meet users and promote the site. They returned to San Francisco with a profitable business model to present to West Coast investors. By March 2009, the site had 10,000 users and 2,500 listings.
In March 2009, the name of the company was shortened to Airbnb.com to eliminate confusion over air mattresses. At the March 2011 South by Southwest conference, Airbnb won the "app" award. In July 2014, Airbnb revealed design revisions to the site and mobile app and introduced a new logo. It also announced a partnership with Concur, an expense reporting service for businesses.
In 2014, linguist Mark Liberman criticized the extreme length of the legal agreements that Airbnb members are required to accept, with the site's terms of service, privacy policy, and other policies amounting to "55081 words, or about the size of a short novel, though much less readable".
In April 2015, following the easing of restrictions on U.S. businesses to operate in Cuba, Airbnb expanded to Cuba, making it one of the first U.S. companies to do so. In July 2016, former Attorney General Eric Holder was hired to help craft an anti-discrimination policy for Airbnb after reports showed that hosts were refusing to accept lodging requests from guests whose names suggested that they were black. As part of the reform, photos of prospective guests are hidden from hosts until requests for lodging are accepted.
In November 2016, Airbnb launched "experiences", whereby users can use the platform to book activities. In January 2017, along with serial entrepreneurs Gary Vaynerchuk, Ben Leventhal and Mike Montero, Airbnb led a $13 million investment in Resy, a restaurant reservation-booking app. In May 2017, the company launched Airbnbmag, a magazine co-published with Hearst Communications.
In August 2017, Airbnb cancelled numerous bookings, and closed accounts belonging to attendees of the white supremacist Unite the Right rally organized by Jason Kessler in Charlottesville, Virginia, citing its terms of service in which members must "accept people regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age."
In February 2018, the company announced Airbnb Plus, a collection of homes vetted for quality of services, comfort and design, as well as Beyond by Airbnb, which offers luxury vacation rentals. By October 2019, two million people were staying with Airbnb each night. In April 2019, Airbnb produced and financed Gay Chorus Deep South, a documentary launched by its Rausch Street Films division. The rights were sold to MTV, which aired the program on its network.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, bookings dropped as much as 96% in some cities. However, bookings rose in many rural areas. The company pledged $250 million in payouts to hosts to compensate them for guest cancellations due to the pandemic. The company also laid off approximately 1,900 employees, or about 25% of its workforce in the Americas, Europe, and Asia due to the pandemic. On December 10, 2020, Airbnb became a public company via an initial public offering, raising $3.5 billion on Nasdaq. Shares valued at $238 million were offered to hosts on the platform at the price of $68 per share.
Airbnb was one of the 15 leading sponsors of the 2022 Winter Olympics, held in Beijing, and was asked by human rights activists and groups to drop its sponsorship in March 2021 as part of diplomatic and activist boycotts over alleged human rights violations by the Chinese Communist Party, in particular the persecution of Uyghurs in China. These requests were ignored by the company.
In March 2022, Airbnb suspended business in Russia and Belarus due to international sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In May 2022, Airbnb ceased operations in China because of complicated and expensive laws and regulations that required Airbnb to send detailed information on guests to the government of China, which can be used to track people, as well as a decline in business due to COVID-19 lockdowns; China represented less than 1% of revenue for Airbnb. Airbnb was accused of being too willing to provide information to Chinese authorities, which led to the resignation of an Airbnb executive, who was also a former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 2019 after 6 months of working. Airbnb had also been accused of allowing listings on land owned by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a Chinese state-owned paramilitary entity sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act for involvement in the persecution of Uyghurs in China. In 2019, critics accused some hosts in China of discrimination over their refusal to rent to Uyghurs.
After temporarily banning parties in homes rented on the platform in August 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in June 2022, Airbnb announced that it would permanently ban parties and events in homes on its platform, a position supported by hosts and their neighbors who complained of nuisances at Airbnb properties. In August 2022, Airbnb rolled out technology to enforce this ban.
In January 2021, Airbnb allowed attendees of the January 6 United States Capitol attack to book units on the platform in the Washington metropolitan area, despite most hotels in the vicinity of Capitol Hill banning far-right extremists. After the possibility of further violence during the Inauguration of Joe Biden, Airbnb announced the day after the January 6 United States Capitol attack that it was banning all bookings in the region prior to the inauguration.
In February 2025, Airbnb cofounder and board member Joe Gebbia joined the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Concern that Gebbia's work for DOGE undermines U.S. democracy resulted in calls to boycott Airbnb.
In May 2025, Airbnb expanded beyond home rentals by launching Airbnb Services and a redesigned Airbnb Experiences platform. The new services allowed users to book offerings such as chefs, massages, personal training, hair and makeup, and photography through Airbnb.
In June 2025, Airbnb became a sponsor of the FIFA Club World Cup in a three-year partnership to offer "official fan accommodation" at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which the US is co-hosting with Canada and Mexico, and the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup in Brazil.
Corporate office history
In October 2011, Airbnb established an office in London, its first international office. In early 2012, Airbnb opened offices in Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Moscow, and São Paulo. These openings were in addition to existing offices in San Francisco, London, Hamburg, and Berlin. In September 2013, the company announced that it would establish its European headquarters in Dublin.
In November 2012, Airbnb opened an office in Sydney, its 11th office location, and announced plans to launch the service in Thailand and Indonesia. In December 2012, Airbnb opened an office in Singapore. In April 2022, Airbnb instituted a policy of unlimited remote working for almost all its employees.
Share sales, corporate borrowing and valuation history
In April 2009, the company received $600,000 in seed money from Sequoia Capital, with Youniversity Ventures partners Jawed Karim, Keith Rabois, and Kevin Hartz participating. Shares were sold for $0.01 each. In November 2010, Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital invested $7.2 million in a Series A round. Shares were sold for $0.21 each (split adjusted). In July 2011, Andreessen Horowitz, Digital Sky Technologies, General Catalyst, and A Grade Investments partners Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary invested $112 million in the company. Shares were sold for $3.21 each (split adjusted). In April 2014, TPG Capital invested $450 million in the company at a valuation of $10 billion. Additional funding was provided by Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, T. Rowe Price, and Sherpa Capital. Shares in this round were sold for $20.36 each (split adjusted).
In June 2015, General Atlantic, Hillhouse Capital Group, Tiger Management, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, GGV Capital, China Broadband Capital, and Horizons Ventures invested $1.5 billion in the company. Shares in this round were sold for $46.55 each (split adjusted).
In September 2016, Google Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures invested $555.5 million in the company at a valuation of $30 billion. Shares in this round were sold for $52.50 each (split adjusted). In March 2017, Airbnb raised $1 billion in funding, bringing total funding raised to more than $3 billion and valuing the company at $31 billion. Shares in this round were sold for $52.50 each (split adjusted). In April 2020, Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners acquired $1 billion in shares in the company at an $18 billion valuation and $1 billion in debt at interest rates of 9%–11.5%.
From Wikipedia’s article on Airbnb, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.9