A major outside player has joined the Toronto startup ecosystem.
On Friday, Airbnb, the San Francisco-based, peer-to-peer marketplace for rental spaces, officially became a resident at
MaRS Discovery District after
opening a new office at the Toronto-based Regional Innovation Centre. This new home base will house three of the company's Canadian employees.
Aaron Zifkin, who was brought on as the company's Canadian manager this past September,
said at the time: "Our goal in Canada is to create and support a thriving community for hosts and guests, enabling unique and meaningful travel experiences like never before. The Canadian Airbnb community is already one of the largest and most passionate in the world and we believe there are ample opportunities to help it continue to grow as the favourite option for domestic and international travellers."
Since being founded in August of 2008, Airbnb has raised almost $800-million in venture capital. The company is currently valued at over $13-billion. Representatives from Airbnb say the company is "experiencing hyper growth in Canada," with more than 18,000 Canadian listings on its website at any given time.
According to its most recently publicly released statistics, Airbnb has more than 800,000 listings in 33,000 cities across 192 counties.
Source: MaRS