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With Airbnb just days from closing a large new funding round that will value the company at $10 billion, its founders are about to become billionaires, Forbes reports.
Cofounders Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia will all maintain personal stakes of just over 15 percent of the company after the dilution of this raise, according to knowledgeable sources, which will net Airbnb between $400 and $500 million.
At about a $10 billion valuation, that makes each cofounder's personal stake in the San Francisco-based company worth just over $1.5 billion, vaulting them into the ranks of the world's youngest billionaires.
The new round, which will close in the next one to two weeks, is being led by Fort Worth, Texas-based private equity firm TPG Capital, with a number of other investors, not all of whom are expected to sign on at once, but in tranches over time, sources tell Forbes.
Airbnb declined to comment on both the round and the cofounders' personal stakes.
Don't expect Chesky, 32, Gebbia, 32, and Blecharczyk, 30, to go buy their own Necker Island anytime soon _ those riches are still largely tied to Airbnb's future in stock, and the founders prefer to live simply.
Chesky and Gebbia, who first came up with the idea for Airbnb in 2008 as Rhode Island School of Design grads transplanted to San Francisco, still live in the same apartment in the South of Market neighborhood where they started the company.
Blecharczyk, who joined early that year as cofounder and CTO of what was then called Airbedandbreakfast.com, still bikes to work, according to an Airbnb insider.
And much like Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick has been known to drive cabs around town, Chesky will still list his apartment on Airbnb once in a while to personally test out the local listings.
When the round closes, Blecharczyk will become the world's fourth youngest billionaire behind the likes of Facebookers Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz and 24-year-old Hong Kong citizen Perenna Kei.
