New Delhi: Airbnb Inc. is set to make its debut on Wall Street with the trading of its shares on Thursday at a price that values the home-sharing giant at over $47 billion. Joe Gebbia, Brian Chesky, and Nathan Blecharczyk co-founded the company in 2008 with the idea of renting air mattresses in their San Francisco apartments, and the company now has more than 7 million short-term listings worldwide. ALSO READ | Burger King IPO: What US-based Fast-Food Major’s India Unit Listing Means For Investors?

The co-founders would not have thought in 2008 that Airbnb would be valued at $47 billion, more than the largest hotel operator, Marriott.

The shares will trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol “ABNB.” Airbnb raised $3.7 billion in the offering, making it the largest US IPO this year, according to Renaissance Capital, which tracks IPOs.

The company’s IPO came just hours after DoorDash Inc. almost doubled from its listing price in its debut trading session, adding to a flurry of consumer-facing web-based companies going public this month in the US market.

The India Connection:

Airbnb entered India in 2016 and plans to expand its operations as part of its long-term growth strategy, even as the company has lower penetration, but India is a market critical to Airbnb’s success as it is one of the fastest-growing.

India, along with China, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and “tens of thousands of smaller markets and remote areas worldwide” are regions where Airbnb’s “penetration is lower,” according to the IPO document.

Airbnb had contributed over $320 million to the Indian GDP driven by guest spending during the day, hosts investment in their properties, according to a report by Oxford Economics in August this year. The company had supported nearly 50,000 local jobs in 2019, according to the report.

How to invest in IPO:

The retail investors in India cannot directly participate in IPOs in the US market. However, one can buy US-listed firms' shares after the IPO, when institutional investors offer them for sale. So, the Indian retail investors can only buy the shares after Airbnb’s listing on Thursday.

Indian retail investors can buy US-listed firms' shares through investment firms such as Stockal, WInvesta, and Vested Finance as they provide a platform for global investors.

Leading Indian brokerage houses like HDFC Securities, Kotak Securities, ICICI Direct, Axis Securities, and Motilal Oswal Financial Services facilitate such overseas investments through their tie-ups with US brokers.