Bending Spoons is buying Airtable for $1.285bn: “We’re committed for the long run”

Bending Spoons has agreed to buy Airtable for $1.285bn. Its chief executive is selling the deal as a long-term bet. “Airtable is a pioneering brand reshaping how teams organize data and manage critical workflows,” said Luca Ferrari, the Italian company’s CEO and co-founder. He added that Bending Spoons is “committed to investing in Airtable for the long run.”

The transaction is all cash. It values Airtable at an enterprise value of $1.285bn. Including Airtable’s net cash, that implies an equity value of about $2.25bn. Both boards approved the deal unanimously, and it should close later this year, subject to regulatory clearances. Until then, the two firms operate separately.

For Bending Spoons, this is a milestone. It is the first acquisition since the Milan company listed on Nasdaq on 1 July. It bought AOL in January and Eventbrite in March. Airtable is the biggest name yet on a shopping list built for scale.

Airtable is worth the attention. Founded in 2013, it blends a spreadsheet with a database so teams can build apps without code. More than 500,000 organisations use it, including 80% of the Fortune 100. Annual recurring revenue grew more than 20% over the year to about $480m by June 2026. Co-founder and chief executive Howie Liu called it “the AI-native platform of the future.”

The playbook behind the promise

Bending Spoons runs one strategy, repeatedly. It buys a digital business, transforms it deeply, squeezes more profit out of it, and reinvests in the next deal. It says it has never sold a material business. AI, it adds, is now both the vision and the tool it uses to remake what it buys. The machine runs on cheap debt and a growing portfolio.

What “deep transformation” means in practice is the part customers tend to notice. After buying Evernote in 2022, Bending Spoons laid off 129 staff. It then cut most of the remaining team and moved operations to Europe. Prices rose, and the free tier shrank. The note app survived, but barely resembled its former self.

WeTransfer followed a similar arc. After that 2024 acquisition, the company planned to cut about 75% of staff. In July 2025, WeTransfer added a terms clause many users read as granting AI-training rights over their files. It reversed course within days. Bending Spoons frames all of this as patient, long-term investment.

Why Airtable, why now

The prize is the data. Airtable sits inside the workflows of most of the world’s largest companies. That reach is valuable now, as enterprises rethink what they pay for no-code and SaaS tools in the AI era. Owning the platform means owning the “AI-native” pitch Liu is making.

It is also Bending Spoons’ most ambitious enterprise-software bet yet, bigger than its rivals’ recent workflow deals. It is a clear step up from the consumer apps that built its portfolio. The roll-up that keeps buying has moved into the heart of the enterprise.

So the promise and the pattern now point at the same company. Ferrari says he will invest in Airtable for the long run. For the 500,000 organisations that depend on it, the question is simple. Does that mean faster growth, or the higher prices and leaner teams his other brands already know?