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.
Did users leave for other products/solutions?
Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
31–40 of 121 posts
Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#32I 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?
that cant be right if so they got an excellent deal ...$1BN cash (!)
Deals of this type are usually cash free and debt free. The cash went to the shareholders. Hence the implied valuation of $2.5B.
Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#33Airtable is worth "just" $1.3B? I see (or used to see) it almost everywhere; why such a low valuation?
I’ve always felt like their money went into marketing, not actual capabilities. It still feels like a Fisher-Price tier platform imo.
That's an interesting perspective..
I feel like everyone I know/knew who was really into Airtable was pretty sophisticated and used it for complex data wrangling that was beyond the typical tools they had access to.
But they were often solo operators for that data because whatever they were wrangling wasn't worth putting into a database or investing in more robust tools (from a company perspective)..
So perhaps you are correct.
Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#34What is the best open source alternatives of Airtable?
I am using Baserow (https://baserow.io/) happily.
Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#35Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#36Expect entshittification of Airtable after the acquisition.
This goes for almost all software. 'entshittification' in software is pretty much almost a standard. Software and businesses that goes through these stages: Venture Capital, Private Equity, Acquisitions, Ads / Sponsors, Raising Prices due to competition, etc. Always get enshittified.
>This goes for almost all software. 'entshittification' in software
It's really every category of commercial activity. Restaurants food quality, cable tv channels, movie sequels, home appliances, airline travel, theme parks, etc.
For years, I had a particular local HVAC company do my twice-a-year maintenance on my air conditioner and furnace. I liked the owner and he had a crew of older experienced guys that knew what they were doing. He then sold the business to another owner and he completely changed out the crew to kids that barely look 18 years old. The young inexperienced techs didn't have the skills to diagnose anything on their own. They always had to phone the home office and use their smartphones to send video/photos of what they're looking at to the more knowledgeable technician at the office. That way, the senior guy sitting at the desk can walk them through what to do next. That's when I realized the financial game the new owner was playing: hire new kids that just completed their 3-month HVAC tech certificate for cheap wages but still charge the same high prices that the old owner was charging for experienced techs. And only pay for one expensive senior tech back at the office to be a "shared resource" for all the clueless techs out in the field. That type of "enshittification" didn't require venture capital, or private equity, or ads. The common pattern of degrading a product or service has the same thing in common ... humans.
The vast majority of enshittification is not caused by private equity or ads.
Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#37I 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?
Probably they are getting eaten by new AI integrations and the numbers don’t look good. It’s strange, I thought they were in pole position to integrate into vibe coded apps with bolt and co. Maybe be a strategy issue?
It's used by non technical people so not sure AI is the competition.
Perhaps Notion and all the project planning apps like Linear, ClickUp, Asana?
Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#38Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#39That’s a bold move in a vibe coding world.
Kind of amazing Airtable couldn’t turn vibe coding in Airtable itself into something worth charging for.
But they have had a distinct lack of imagination for a very long time.
Re: Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
#40People are reacting like Bending Spoons is going to make Airtable worse, whereas in fact being acquired by bending spoons is already the indicated of things being worse than ever. Which may be a little premature for Airtable but definitely not unexpected.
As to what will bending spoons do with it - does anyone know (or care) what did they do with Evernote, or AOL?
Airtable felt stuck for a long before that, now is just the moment to remind ourselves not to be stuck with it.