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A legendary venture-capital firm bought Airbnb shares for 1 cent each in 2009

December 11, 2020

Airbnb’s stock price more than doubled to about $145 on Thursday, valuing the home-rental platform at north of $85 billion on its first day of trading. One of the company’s earliest backers paid just one cent a share when it invested in April 2009.

Sequoia Capital – a storied venture-capital fund that counts Apple, Google, and Instagram among its past investments – handed Airbnb a seed investment of $585,000 for around 58 million shares, according to The Information. It participated in several later funding rounds, ultimately spending about $280 million for nearly 82 million shares, which were worth close to $12 billion on Thursday.

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