Bending Spoons Buys Airtable for $1.285B in Its First Post-IPO Deal — a ~3x Multiple on ~$500M ARR
Bending Spoons signed a definitive agreement on July 30 to acquire Airtable for $1.285 billion, its first acquisition since going public; HN commenters compute roughly $2.25B equity value against ~$1B of net cash, and note that against reported ~$500M ARR the price is only about a 3x multiple — read as investors wanting out of a flat-or-declining business. The thread (54 points, 63 comments) focused on Bending Spoons' openly stated playbook of acquiring sticky products and replacing large engineering teams with skeleton crews, citing Meetup's climb to €29/month with stagnant functionality alongside Evernote, Vimeo, WeTransfer and AOL. The practical takeaway for builders: evaluate Airtable-dependent workflows for migration now.
↳ Follow the thread