From $11.7B to $1.3B: Airtable Sale Caps SaaS Valuation Reset

Italian technology firm Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Airtable for about $1.285 billion, a sharp drop from the collaboration software company’s $11.7 billion private valuation in 2021.

Including Airtable’s cash, the deal implies an enterprise value of roughly $2.25 billion, highlighting how far software valuations have fallen since the pandemic-era boom, when investors awarded high-growth SaaS companies record multiples, according to Forge Global.

The deal reflects the broader reset across venture-backed software. Airtable, however, continues to expand, generating about $480 million in annual recurring revenue as of June, up roughly 20% year over year, according to The Wall Street Journal. Even so, investors were no longer willing to pay the lofty multiples seen in 2021.

At its peak valuation, Airtable traded at more than 24 times ARR. The Bending Spoons deal values the company at roughly 2.7 times ARR based on the reported $1.285 billion purchase price, underscoring the sharp compression in software valuations.

From SaaS Darling to Valuation Reset

At the time of its 2021 funding round, Airtable was viewed as one of the most promising enterprise software companies, offering businesses a no-code platform to build databases and workflow applications.

But the market environment changed. Higher interest rates, slowing SaaS growth and concerns that artificial intelligence could disrupt traditional software categories have pushed investors to prioritize profitability and efficiency over growth at any cost.

Private market investors had already begun marking down Airtable well before the acquisition.

Investors Were Already Repricing Airtable

Forge Global’s Price Beacon shows Airtable’s secondary-market shares declined sharply over the past year, falling from $60 to $42.37, a 29.38% decline. The decline accelerated recently, with shares dropping from $57.26 to $42.37 over the past month, representing a 26% decrease, according to Forge data.

The secondary-market decline signaled growing investor skepticism around Airtable’s previous valuation and reflected a broader repricing of late-stage software companies. While private market pricing does not represent an official company valuation, it can provide insight into investor sentiment and demand for private shares.

A New Playbook for Private Software Investing

Bending Spoons, with CEO and co-founder Luca Ferrari at the helm, buys established technology companies at lower valuations and attempts to improve margins through operational changes.

The company’s portfolio includes AOL, Eventbrite and Vimeo.

For venture capital firms that invested during the 2021 funding frenzy, Airtable’s outcome underscores a broader challenge: even category-leading software companies can struggle to justify billion-dollar private valuations without a clear path to public markets.

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