Bending Spoons went public on July 1. Less than a month later, it announced it was buying Airtable for $1.285 billion in cash. The no-code database platform that once commanded an $11.7 billion valuation in 2021 is now worth less than a tenth of that peak price.
The deal structure is straightforward: 100% share purchase, enterprise value of $1.285 billion. Add Airtable's net cash position and the equity value hits roughly $2.25 billion. Closing is expected later this year, pending regulatory sign-offs. For context, Bending Spoons reported $1.31 billion in revenue for 2025, so it is essentially buying a company at 1x its own annual revenue.
The timing raises questions
Bending Spoons raised about $1.68 billion when it listed on Nasdaq at $29 per share. The Airtable acquisition was almost certainly in negotiation before the IPO went live. That means investors who bought shares at the offer price were, in effect, bankrolling this acquisition from day one. The public listing served as a financing mechanism for M&A that management had already lined up.
Airtable, founded in 2013 by Howie Liu, built a platform used by over 500,000 companies worldwide. The company raised more than $1.4 billion in total funding during its private years. It burned through that capital and still couldn't reach profitability at scale, which partly explains why founders and investors agreed to exit at 89% below the peak.
Bending Spoons has a playbook for this kind of acquisition. The Italian tech buyer previously snapped up AOL and Eventbrite, applying AI-driven product work and aggressive cost-cutting to squeeze value out of struggling assets. Whether that formula works on a platform like Airtable, which competes in a crowded no-code space, remains an open question. The SaaS multiple collapse is real, and this deal is proof of just how far valuations have fallen since 2021.
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice or investment guidance.
