A source familiar with the inside story revealed,Global homestay short-term rental booking platform Airbnb (Airbnb) plans to secretly submit IPO (initial public offering) listing documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this month.

Airbnb may start listing before the end of this year, but the company declined to comment.

The company was originally expected to go public earlier this year, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, its IPO plans were put on hold for the time being, andLay off 25% of staff to cut costs,The total number of layoffs is about 1,900.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (Brian Chesky) said at the time that the company's 2020 revenue would be less than half of 2019 revenue. The pandemic has taken a devastating toll on the travel and hospitality industry and has become a huge hurdle Airbnb has had to overcome.

Airbnb's valuation in the private equity market has fallen to $18 billion, far below $31 billion when the company launched a financing round in 2017.

In April of this year, Airbnb also raised $1 billion from private equity investment firm Silver Lake (Silver Lake) and Sixth Street Partners, hoping to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. Just a week later, the company went back to Fidelity (Fidelity) and T. Rowe Price and BlackRock (BlackRock) raised $1 billion.