Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.285 billion in all-cash deal

Bending Spoons S.p.A. agreed to acquire Airtable in an all-cash transaction valuing the workflow software maker at $1.285 billion in enterprise value, or roughly $2.25 billion in equity value including its net cash balance. The deal marks the Milan-based company's first acquisition since its Nasdaq listing on July 1 and extends a roll-up strategy that has never included a divestiture.

"Airtable is a pioneering brand reshaping how teams organize data and manage critical workflows," said Luca Ferrari, CEO and co-founder of Bending Spoons. "The value being delivered is reflected in annual recurring revenue growing over 20 percent year-over-year to approximately $480 million as of June 2026."

Airtable serves more than 500,000 organizations, including 80 percent of the Fortune 100. The deal, unanimously approved by both boards, is expected to close later this year pending regulatory approvals. Bending Spoons, which listed on Nasdaq on July 1 at $29 per share, now carries a market capitalization of about $22.4 billion. Shares traded at $36.22 on Monday, up 2.9 percent, as investors digested the acquisition's implications for the company's capital allocation.

The acquisition extends Bending Spoons' compounding model: acquire digital businesses, implement deep transformations, sustainably expand earnings, and reinvest in further acquisitions. The company has never sold a material business since founding more than a decade ago. Its portfolio now spans AOL, Brightcove, Eventbrite, Evernote, Harvest, komoot, Remini, StreamYard, Vimeo, and WeTransfer — serving over 500 million monthly active users and more than 9 million paying customers as of March.

The Compounding Playbook

Bending Spoons' approach differs from traditional private equity in its intensity: it acquires businesses outright, restructures teams, overhauls technology stacks, redesigns user interfaces, and accelerates product development and monetization. AI serves as both a central component of the transformation vision and a tool for implementation. The company's performance is driven by its proprietary platform combining people, technology, and data.

Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Airtable, said the partnership gives the company "the resources and the long-term commitment Airtable needs to pursue that vision even more boldly as we build the AI-native platform of the future." Airtable was founded in 2013 to let non-technical teams build custom applications by combining spreadsheet familiarity with database depth.

The deal follows Bending Spoons' €500 million SACE-backed term loan facility announced July 28, providing additional acquisition firepower. The financing, maturing in March 2031, was arranged by HSBC Continental Europe, Intesa Sanpaolo, and BPER Banca. The facility, guaranteed by Italian export credit agency SACE, gives the company access to European capital markets as it scales its acquisition pipeline.

Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE and J.P. Morgan are acting as co-financial advisors to Bending Spoons, with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP as legal counsel. Latham & Watkins LLP and AXOM Partners LLC are advising Airtable.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, with both companies operating independently until closing. The deal values Airtable at roughly 2.7 times its annual recurring revenue of approximately $480 million — a multiple that reflects the company's 20 percent-plus growth rate and its enterprise customer base. For context, Bending Spoons' prior acquisitions of AOL in January and Eventbrite in March followed a similar pattern of acquiring established digital brands with meaningful recurring revenue, though financial terms were not disclosed for those transactions.

The Airtable deal also carries implications for the broader SaaS M&A market. Private software valuations have compressed since the 2021 peak, and the 2.7x ARR multiple sits below the 5-8x range typical of high-growth SaaS acquisitions during the boom era. That pricing gap may encourage more strategic buyers to pursue consolidation in the collaborative productivity and workflow automation space, where competitors include Notion, Monday.com, and Asana. For Bending Spoons, the transaction also tests whether its operational playbook can translate to enterprise software — a category distinct from the consumer apps and media properties that have dominated its portfolio to date.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.