Airbnb

Airbnb is a website for people to rent out lodging. It has over 800,000 listings in 33,000 cities and 192 countries. Founded in August 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company is privately owned and operated by Airbnb, Inc. Users of the site must register and create a personal online profile before using the site. Every property is associated with a host whose profile includes recommendations by other users, reviews by previous guests, as well as a response rating and private messaging system. As of July 2011, the company had raised $119.8 million in venture funding from Y Combinator, Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global Solutions, General Catalyst Partners and undisclosed amounts from Youniversity Ventures’ partners, Jawed Karim, Keith Rabois, and Kevin Hartz, and from A Grade Investments’ partners, Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary. In April 2014, the company closed on an investment of $450 million by TPG Capital at a valuation of approximately $10 billion.