Airbnb's $1.5B round: a list of the largest US VC deals

The company is now valued at $25.5 billion, making it worth more than many hotels it is distrupting

Over the weekend, something really huge happened over at Airbnb, as the company, which is no stranger to big funding rounds, surpassed nearly all others to raise one of the biggest funding rounds of all time. 

The home-rental company raised an absolutely massive $1.5 billion funding round, the Wall Street Journal reported. It was led by General Atlantic Inc., Hillhouse Capital Group of China and investment firm Tiger Global Management, which are collectively buying about a third of the shares allocated for the round.

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, GGV Capital, China Broadband Capital and Horizon Ventures also participated in the round.

And, finally, a sign that that we might be getting an Airbnb IPO in the near future: several public “crossover” investment funds that the Journal says "are taking stakes in private companies ahead of initial public offerings." That included mutual-fund firms Wellington Management and Baillie Gifford who bought in the company, while T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Fidelity Investments increased their stakes.

With the funding, Airbnb's new valuation is now $25.5 billion. Wow. 

So now let's put this round into some context. How big is it? And just how big is that valuation? The answer to both: absolutely huge.

A huge valuation

Airbnb's new valuation puts it in elite company, but it is not anywhere near the highest valued company right now. It still sits behind Uber, which is valued at $40 billion, and Chinese cellphone manufacturer Xiaomi, which is valued at $45 billion.

More importantly, though, Airbnb is now valued at more than almost every other company in the hospitality industry, including the major hotel chains it is looking to disrupt. That includes Marriot, which is valued at $20.9 billion, and Starwood, which is valued at $14 billion. The only hotel chain that is still worth more is Hilton, and barely, with $27.6 billion.

Airbnb's largest direct competitor is HomeAway,  an online marketplace for vacation rentals, which went public in 2011, and there is no comparison between what the two are worth: currently trading at $30.18 a share, HomeAway has a market cap of 2.86 billion, meaning Airbnb is now worth more than eight times as much. 

The largest funding rounds of all time

So now that we see how much Airbnb is worth, where does this round fall in the biggest VC fundings of all time in the United States? Really high up there. In fact, it's now tied for first place ever, with Facebook. which raised its own $1.5 billion funding round in 2011. That valued the company at $50 billion. 

In third is Uber, which raised $1.2 billion last year... twice. It raised a $1.2 billion funding round in December, after raising a $1.2 billion in June. That second round is what jumped its valuation to $45 billion.

That's it for the $1 billion and above deals; after that is wireless company Clearwire, which raised $900 million in 2006. That was followed by fiber optic network company Western Integrated Networks, which raised $889 million in 1999.

Number six on the list is augmented reality startup Magic Leap, which raised $542 million late last year, then Beats Electronics, which took on $500 million in 2013, and Zhone Technologies, which raised the same amount in 1999. Rounding out the top 10 are gaming company Zynga, which raised $490 million in 2011, and Snapchat, which raised $485 million at the end of 2014. 

You know which company was just displaced from the top 10 list by this latest round? Airbnb, and its own$475 million round that it raised last year! 

VatorNews has reached out to Airbnb for confirmation of the new funding round. We will update this story if we learn more.