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How Uber's CEO Responds When Asked If His Company Is Raising At A Valuation That Exceeds Airbnb's $2.5 Billion
How Uber's CEO Responds When Asked If His Company Is Raising At A Valuation That Exceeds Airbnb's $2.5 Billion
Alyson ShontellJul 24, 2013, 21:22 IST
Flickr via Fortune Live MediaTravis Kalanick, CEO and co-founder of Uber at Fortune Brainstorm 2013Now that Uber is officially fundraising, the rumor mill is churning again.Fortune's Jessi Hempel interviewed the on-demand car service's CEO, Travis Kalanick, at the Brainstorm conference in Aspen this week. She told Kalanick she had heard his company was raising at a higher valuation than Airbnb, which was valued at $2.5 billion during its last fundraise.In a long-winded, wishy-washy answer, Kalanick more or less denied the claim.Here's how he responded to Hempel:"So the party line is that we are not commenting on fundraising discussions we may or may not be having. And that was interesting information. I don't know what else to say."You know, there are probably one or two folks we're talking to who we've signed NDAs with who are particularly loose with information, but that information is not correct."Kalanick shed a little more color on how well his company is doing but stopped himself before revealing anything too juicy:Our numbers are really, really good. And the multiples that you see in the public market are around companies that are growing like 50 percent or 40 percent. You could take their price-to-sales ratios and we could come in -- well, shoot, I'm getting stuck. Sh*t."Kalanick also acknowledged that Uber is profitable in all of its earliest cities. You can watch the full Brainstorm interview and read the transcript, here.
