Airbnb Shares Surge 115% In Debut, Valuation Tops $100BN

Although DASH didn’t quite make it to $200/share, its shares surged during its Wednesday debut, briefly sparking a rotation from the other momo heavyweights into $DASH, yet another ‘sharing economy’ startup with lots of cash and hype, but no clear path to profitability.

Airbnb’s debut was marked by similarly frenzied trading: Although shares priced at $68 on Wednesday (equivalent to a $90BN market cap), they surged to $146/share, a more than 115% jump, pushing the company’s valuation to more than $100BN.

The company is going public at a time when the sector has been hammered by the pandemic, though Airbnb has made itself available to customers looking for convenient “stay-cation” homes, where they can get away from the din of city life for a bit.

The company’s revenue shrank nearly 19% last quarter to $1.34 billion compared with the same period a year prior. But it still managed to turn a profit of $219 million and has had other intermittent quarters of profitability.