Italy-based technology holding company Bending Spoons S.p.A. has agreed to acquire Airtable Inc., the developer of a widely used cloud-based spreadsheet platform, in an all-cash deal valued at $1.285 billion. The transaction marks Bending Spoons' first acquisition since its initial public offering on the Nasdaq last month, when the company raised $1.68 billion.
The deal comes as a notable turn for Airtable, which has raised approximately $1.4 billion from investors over its lifetime. That figure exceeds the acquisition price, meaning the company's backers could face a loss on paper. Airtable was valued at $11.7 billion after its most recent funding round, a $735 million Series F that closed in 2021.
A Track Record of Turnarounds
Bending Spoons has built a reputation for acquiring tech firms and improving their financial performance by enhancing their products. The company added more than 30 features to Vimeo since buying it last November. It also made over 200 improvements to Evernote, which it acquired two years earlier.
Luca Ferrari, co-founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, framed the Airtable purchase as a long-term commitment. "We're committed to investing in Airtable for the long run, and doubling down on its core strength: bringing teams and workflows together in one flexible workspace," he said. He added, "We plan to expand what can be done across the full spectrum of work and make Airtable even more valuable to customers at every scale."
The company's recent financial results show momentum. Bending Spoons generated $601.3 million in total sales during its fiscal first quarter. The acquisition is expected to close by year's end, though that timeline is not guaranteed.
What Airtable Offers
Airtable's platform allows workers to organize to-do items, leads, and other business data in spreadsheets. Customers can create automation workflows to speed up routine tasks, such as notifying an executive when an important to-do item is completed.
The platform also includes built-in AI agents that enrich spreadsheet data with web information, find patterns, and generate visualizations. Administrators can customize details such as the third-party large language model used by those AI agents.
Beyond spreadsheets, Airtable serves as an application development platform. A tool called Omni enables workers to create simple programs for routine business tasks. Another tool, Portals, can be used with Omni to build apps for external users like suppliers, including user-facing forms and login menus. These applications are connected to the spreadsheets within the platform.
Handling Scale and Data
Default spreadsheets on Airtable have limited data capacity. A feature called HyperDB increases that storage limit by connecting to external data repositories, such as Snowflake environments. HyperDB supports spreadsheets with up to 100 million rows.
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The platform's reach is broad. Airtable says it is used by more than 500,000 organizations, including most of the Fortune 100. Its annual recurring revenue grew more than 20% in the past year, reaching $480 million.
That growth may have been a key factor in Bending Spoons' decision to buy. The company's approach has been to take underperforming or underdeveloped products and invest heavily in them, often with significant results. With Airtable, Bending Spoons gains a product that already has a large customer base and a revenue stream that is expanding.
Strategic Use of IPO Proceeds
The acquisition is the first deal Bending Spoons has made since going public. The company raised $1.68 billion in its Nasdaq listing last month, giving it substantial capital to pursue acquisitions. The Airtable deal is an all-cash transaction, meaning Bending Spoons will pay the full $1.285 billion price without issuing stock.
The deal value is lower than the total funding Airtable has raised, which suggests that early investors may not see the returns they once hoped for. Airtable's $11.7 billion valuation from 2021 was based on a different market environment, and the company's revenue growth, while solid, has not kept pace with that earlier valuation.
Still, Bending Spoons appears to see room for improvement. The company's history with Vimeo and Evernote shows a pattern of aggressive product development and operational changes. With Airtable, the focus will likely be on expanding the platform's capabilities and improving its financial performance.
What Comes Next
The deal is expected to close by the end of 2026. Until then, Airtable will continue to operate as it has, with its customers and products unchanged. Bending Spoons has not indicated any immediate changes to Airtable's leadership or workforce.
The acquisition also highlights the broader trend of consolidation in the productivity software space. Airtable's tools for spreadsheets, automation, AI, and app development put it in competition with larger players, but its niche focus has kept it relevant to a wide range of businesses.
For Bending Spoons, the purchase adds another major brand to its portfolio. The company has shown it can take a product with a loyal user base and make it more profitable. Whether it can do the same for Airtable remains to be seen, but the company's track record suggests it will try.
The article was published under the SiliconANGLE AI category and updated at 20:29 EDT on August 04, 2026. Image credit goes to Airtable.