Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
Bending Spoons, the Italian app developer known for acquiring and reviving struggling apps, has announced its first acquisition since going public: a $1.3 billion deal for Airtable, the popular project management and database platform. The move marks a significant expansion for Bending Spoons, which has traditionally focused on consumer apps, and signals its ambition to grow in the enterprise software space.
This acquisition marks a significant milestone for Bending Spoons as we continue to expand our portfolio and bring our expertise to new markets.
- minraws
I had some thoughts but for context.
Basically, widely reported Airtable's 2026 reported ARR was close to $500M. they sold at a ~3x multiple assuming it went flat/down~~. They had raised $1.4B (total latest around 770M) in funding I am not sure for what?? and had ~1B in cash (according to some online sources)??
Now I have no idea what this is even about, maybe all investors wanted out?
- katspaugh
After they acquired Meetup.com, subscription prices skyrocketed while nothing useful was added to the product.
29€ a month just to host a meetup page with RSVPs.
- xavdid
Bummer. Airtable's a killer product and I've been using and evangelizing it for nearly 10 years at this point. Built whole side projects around it (and its API), plus organized a ton of personal information. I've made some custom integrations too which have just kept working without maintenance for years. I've got fairly regular backups of all my data, but still. Hurts my heart a little.
Best case scenario it keeps working without totally jacking up the prices. But also starting to think about long-term alternatives. BaseRow seems reasonable, as does spinning all of my many bases into a single big Django monolith (something I've had in the back of my head for while anyway). But it's been nice not having to micro manage this service. Pretty good mobile app, too. Enjoyed it while it lasted, I guess!
- dustingetz
$725M@11B Series F 2021 Dec
[email protected] Series E 2021 Mar
[email protected] Series D 2020 Sep
[email protected] Series C 2018 Nov
$52M@152M Series B 2018 Mar
- v5v3
>Bending Spoons said Airtable's current net cash position implies an equity value of about $2.25 billion.
Bending Spoons must have amazing negotiaters to strike such a bargain.
We should send them to Iran to negotiate the peace deal.
- cagataygurturk
Bending Spoons is where products go to die.
- browningstreet
I have a lot of personal stuff in Airtable. It's really nice software but the company has struggled. Omni, their AI agent was terrible, and yet the founders have doubled down on agents with Hyperagents (nee Superagents).
I'm sure Notion DBs ate their lunch, but Coda had the best document database integration I've seen, but they got bought by Superhuman.
This entire market space is going to be messy for a while.
- mertbio
Expect entshittification of Airtable after the acquisition.