Airbnb Inc. has finally filed its paperwork for an initial public offering nearly a year after saying it had plans to do so in 2020.

In a statement today, Airbnb said that it had confidentially submitted a Form S-1 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission while noting that the number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering had not yet been determined. The company said the IPO is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions but didn’t provide any other specifics.

The decision to press ahead with a public offering comes after months of speculation, with some initially believing that Airbnb could delay its IPO until 2021 because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Airbnb was hit hard by the pandemic, suffering a plunge in bookings particularly through the second quarter caused by lockdowns and international borders closings.

In response to the pandemic, Airbnb raised $2 billion in two tranches – $1 billion April 6 in a combination of debt and equity and $1 billion more April 15 through a line of credit to help it weather the downturn. The company laid off 25% of its employees May 5 in an attempt to stem losses.

Airbnb’s level of bookings are still down on where they were last year, but the company has been talking up a recovery. It said in early June that its bookings had started to rebound starting May 17 not only in the U.S. but also in other countries, including Germany, Portugal, South Korea and New Zealand.

People fleeing pandemic-hit cities in the U.S. have also helped boost Airbnb’s business. The company said in July that hosts in rural areas in the U.S. earned over $200 million in the month of June, a 25% increase over June 2019.

Coming into its IPO, Airbnb has raised $5.4 billion, according to Crunchbase, from investors that include Andreessen Horowitz, Manhattan Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, TCV, Firstmark and Altimeter Capital.

How much it could be valued at come IPO time is at best a guess until Airbnb releases financial figures ahead of the float. The company was valued at $18 billion as of its funding rounds in April but had been valued as high as $31 billion in 2017.

Image: Pixabay