Sunday Aug 9
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Airtable Sells At A $9B Discount

9AUG
$11B PEAK$1.28B CASH

The last unicorn class is being bought at clearance prices. Bending Spoons is buying Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash. Five years ago Airtable was worth over $11 billion.

Airtable is not dying. Annual recurring revenue is about $480 million, up more than 20% year over year. It serves 500,000 organisations and 80% of the Fortune 100. It still sold for 2.7 times revenue.

Bending Spoons is the buyer of last resort for the 2021 cohort. It already owns Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo and Eventbrite. The playbook repeats: buy at a discount, trim staff, run it profitably.

Airtable did try the AI route. In January it launched Superagent, a tool for spinning up teams of AI agents. Six months later the multiple had not recovered.

full brief & sources

⚡ Why this matters

  • A $480 million ARR business growing 20% sold for 2.7 times revenue. That is a new floor for mid-tier software.
  • Shipping an agent product did not reprice the company. It is the clearest test yet of whether an AI pivot restores a multiple.
  • Bending Spoons now has a public balance sheet and a full pipeline of 2021 unicorns trading below their last round.

🔍 What happened

  • Aug 4: Bending Spoons agreed to buy Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash.
  • The $1.28 billion is enterprise value. Adding Airtable's cash pile, the equity value lands near $2.25 billion.
  • Airtable peaked above $11 billion in 2021 and traded near $4 billion on secondary markets earlier this year.
  • It had raised more than $1.4 billion across its funding history.
  • ARR was around $480 million as of June, growing more than 20% year over year.
  • This is Bending Spoons' first deal since its July listing at an $18 billion valuation.

💬 Smart takes

  • Luca Ferrari, Bending Spoons founder: 'Airtable is a pioneering brand reshaping how teams organize data and manage critical workflows.'
  • Howie Liu, Airtable CEO: said in January that Airtable serves over 500,000 organisations, including 80% of the Fortune 100.
  • Skeptic: the Bending Spoons method is buy cheap, cut staff, optimise for profit. Customers rarely experience that as accelerated innovation.

🧭 Where this goes

  1. LikelyAirtable headcount is cut within two quarters, following the Evernote and Vimeo pattern.
  2. Likelymore 2021-vintage software companies sell below their last private round this year.
  3. PossibleSuperagent gets narrowed or retired as Bending Spoons streamlines the product line.
  4. Wild CardBending Spoons buys a second billion-dollar software asset before the year ends.
  5. Wild Carda wave of founder-led take-privates starts as boards give up on the IPO route.

🥄 The Spoon Take

Airtable did everything the playbook says. It grew revenue, kept the enterprise logos, shipped an agent product. It still sold for a quarter of its secondary price and a ninth of its peak. The lesson is not that Airtable failed. It is that 2021 valuations were never coming back.

🤔 Pushback

$1.28 billion in cash for a business with real revenue is a genuine outcome, and calling it a failure flatters the companies still raising.

·TechCrunch - Airtable acquisition·Bending Spoons - Deal announcement·Fortune - The $9B discount