Coronavirus sends Airbnb valuation tumbling
The coronavirus pandemic has shaved about $5 billion off the valuation of Airbnb.
Airbnb lowered its internal valuation by 16% to $26 billion.
The home sharing platform previously valued itself at $31 billion.
CEO Brian Chesky announced the new valuation at a company-wide meeting, according to the FT.
Chesky remained upbeat in the video message, saying: "We are going to weather this storm. We are going to get through this together. There’s going to be a huge amount of business on the other side."
Like virtually every other travel-related business, Airbnb’s revenues have tanked, which puts its planned 2020 IPO in jeopardy.
Plans to go public may be delayed, Bloomberg reported.
Airbnb recently said it will allocate about $250 million to help compensate for losses incurred by hosts.
The company reportedly lost $322 million in the first nine months of 2019.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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