Airbnb: What It Does, Who Runs It, Funding and News

Airbnb is a publicly traded travel marketplace that connects guests with places to stay, local experiences and services. Its 2025 annual report says it has over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2.5 billion guest arrivals across more than 220 countries and regions.

YC's page still sums Airbnb up as a way to book accommodations around the world, which was its original business. Since May 2025 it has also sold services and a relaunched line of experiences, and since late 2025 it has partnered directly with boutique hotels. Below: the key facts, leadership, how the company was funded, and what it has reported and launched since early 2025.

Airbnb key facts

Two figures differ by source. Airbnb's proxy statement and YC give 2008 as the founding year, while the 10-K says Airbnb was founded in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests. And YC's page lists a team of 6,132, below the roughly 8,200 employees the 10-K reports for the end of 2025; the filing is the more recent and formal record.

What Airbnb does

Airbnb runs a marketplace between guests and hosts, and it reports its volume as gross booking value (the total value of what guests book) and nights and seats booked. The 10-K describes the business as a global marketplace connecting guests with stays, experiences and services.

• Stays. Homes listed by hosts, the original business. Airbnb ended 2025 with over 9 million active listings (Q4 letter).
• Hotels. In the fourth quarter of 2025 Airbnb began partnering directly with boutique and independent hotels in New York (Q4 letter), and by May 2026 it listed them in 20 destinations including Paris, London and Singapore (Airbnb newsroom).
• Experiences. Activities led by locals, relaunched in May 2025 in 650 cities (Airbnb newsroom).
• Services. Bookable extras such as private chefs, photography, massage and personal training, launched in May 2025 with 10 categories in 260 cities (Airbnb newsroom) and since widened to grocery delivery, car rentals, airport pickups and luggage storage (Q2 2026 letter).

In 2025 guests booked $91.3 billion of gross booking value and 533.0 million nights and seats, up 12% and 8% from 2024, and Airbnb's net income was $2.5 billion, according to its fourth-quarter shareholder letter.

Who runs Airbnb

Brian Chesky, who co-founded the company in 2008, is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the board, according to the 2026 proxy statement dated April 24, 2026. The proxy lists three executive officers:

Joe Gebbia, the third co-founder, is a member of the nine-person board, and is up for re-election at the 2028 annual meeting. The other directors named in the proxy are Angela Ahrendts, Kenneth Chenault, Amrita Ahuja, Jeffrey Jordan, Alfred Lin and James Manyika.

Airbnb funding and IPO

Airbnb raised money from venture and private equity investors for about a decade before its December 2020 initial public offering. The table lists selected rounds with published amounts, and the IPO; valuations are as reported at the time, not company figures.

The 2020 investment came early in the pandemic and, as TechCrunch reported, was a mix of debt and equity whose terms were not made public. Eight months later the IPO priced at $68 a share.

Airbnb news, 2025 to 2026

• May 13, 2025: Airbnb launched Services and relaunched Experiences, and released an app rebuilt to book homes, services and experiences in one place (Airbnb newsroom).
• February 12, 2026: Full-year 2025 results: revenue of $12.2 billion, up 10%, and net income of $2.5 billion. Airbnb said about a third of support issues were being resolved without a human agent (Q4 letter).
• May 7, 2026: First-quarter revenue rose 18% to $2.7 billion and net income was $160 million. Airbnb reported a $2.5 billion senior unsecured debt offering, repayment of $2.0 billion of convertible notes, and a partnership letting travelers earn Delta miles on experiences and services (Q1 letter).
• May 20, 2026: The 2026 Summer Release added grocery delivery, car rentals, airport pickups, FIFA World Cup 2026 experiences and hotels in 20 destinations (Airbnb newsroom).
• August 6, 2026: Second-quarter revenue rose 17% to $3.6 billion and net income was $816 million, on gross booking value of $27.2 billion. Airbnb bought back $1.1 billion of its Class A stock in the quarter (Q2 letter).

In the same second-quarter letter, Airbnb guided to third-quarter 2026 revenue of $4.69 billion to $4.77 billion, 15% to 17% more than a year earlier, and said it expected full-year revenue growth of at least the mid teens.