BIZ BUZZ: HBNB: Philippine ‘unicorn’ emerges

It took almost four months for this Philippine “unicorn” to emerge.

We’re referring to Hotel101 Global Holdings Corp. or HBNB, the Nasdaq-listed subsidiary of DoubleDragon Corp., founded by tycoons Tony Tan Caktiong and Edgar “Injap” Sia II, which saw its share price hit a high of $4.80 over the weekend, giving it a market capitalization of $1.07 billion, securing its status as a “unicorn.”

A company is deemed a “unicorn” when its value reaches at least $1 billion, a rare accomplishment indeed, thus the reference to the mythical creature.

To recall, HBNB listed on July 1, 2025, on tech-heavy Nasdaq—the first Philippine company to do so—following its merger with US special purpose acquisition company JVSPAC Acquisition Corp.

Back then, the market capitalization of the DoubleDragon subsidiary trading alongside tech giants such as Microsoft and Apple was pegged at just around $700 million.

That the share price went up, market observers put down to Wall Street seeing the upside in its vision to have one million rooms across 100 countries, with projects in 25 countries, including the United States, already in various stages of development.

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The 680-room Hotel101-Madrid, for example, is adjacent to the new Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix Circuit in Valdebebas and expected to welcome guests by the end of this year. The company earlier inked a 10-year agreement to become the official hotel partner of the F1 Spanish Grand Prix from 2026 to 2035.

With other Hotel101s coming out of the pipeline, the question now on investors’ minds is, will HBNB’s valuation eventually catch up with AirBnB’s, now pegged at $79 billion? Abangan!