Airtable sold for $1.28B at ~2.7x ARR, then new owner Bending Spoons began mass layoffs
sanjaykalra · x · 2026-10-19
Airtable was acquired by Bending Spoons in August 2025 for $1.28 billion in cash, at which point it had roughly $480M ARR growing over 20% a year — about 2.7x ARR for a company valued above $11 billion in 2021, with 80% of the Fortune 100 as customers.
Per Business Insider (Oct 12), the new owner is laying off a "large part" of the Airtable team; no headcount disclosed (SaaStr estimated 935 employees pre-deal). Bending Spoons' product leader said the cuts reflect a belief that small teams ship more and better.
Two takeaways from the author:
- Roll-up playbook repeating: Evernote, Vimeo, and AOL all went through the same treatment after Bending Spoons bought them.
- Valuation signal: the price tells every SaaS board how the market now values horizontal workflow software — despite Airtable launching Superagent in January and hiring an OpenAI engineering leader.
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