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?

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cm277 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I strongly suspect a big chunk of their revenue was enterprise where it was probably used as a CRUD app / Access replacement with proper controls. That's low hanging fruit for Claude and friends, so their renewals/ARR must have started dropping off and they sold while the selling was good.

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rightbyte a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Eyeing Wikipedia it seems like it sold for about raised capital. Probably very little product value but some b2b contracts to milk?

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elias_t a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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?

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v5v3 21 hours ago | parent [-]

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?

	▲	elias_t 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> It's used by non technical people so not sure AI is the competition. I mean yes but most of them are vibe coding apps now > Perhaps Notion and all the project planning apps like Linear, ClickUp, Asana? Most probably, but their market share must have free fall for such valuation

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monkeydust a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

that cant be right if so they got an excellent deal ...$1BN cash (!)

	▲	fra a day ago \| parent [-]
		Deals of this type are usually cash free and debt free. The cash went to the shareholders. Hence the implied valuation of $2.5B.

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reticulates a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

ARR has always been a bullshit number but it is an especially bullshit number nowadays because AI has destroyed software margins.

	▲	colesantiago a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> AI has destroyed software margins. Nobody wants to talk about or reveal the AI or software margins. Will cause everyone to panic once they see how low the margins are getting year over year.
	▲	jgalt212 20 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I guess in the sense that if your goal is to sell, you'd optimize on revenues. That being said, when I look at an income statement I am usually more suspect of costs than revenues.

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shubhamjain a day ago | parent | prev [-]

If these numbers are remotely true, there's either a crucial number missing or investors are utter idiots who forced this sale. Won't be surprised if it's the latter.

Assuming M&A deals take at least a few months to close, this acquisition was probably set in motion around April, when SaaS sentiment was near rock bottom and cash-flow machines like Cloudflare, Adobe, and Snowflake were getting crushed simply because Anthropic announced something.

	▲	minraws 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think the revenues must have taken a hit or growth was getting harder, otherwise this doesn't make sense also IV is 2.25B so assuming cash went to investors + some employee equity. I don't think other than early investors and founders others made much of anything. But if the revenues were hit this might be a home run, given AI could replace all of airtable in about a weekend e2e, but then again a competent team of 2-3 devs could have done it over a few weeks, it wasn't ever really about the product quality. My condolences to all the Airtable users, who are about to get fleeced now, they should consider moving to anything else, even vibe coded slop might be ok.