Who owns Airtable? Ownership structure explained (2026)

Airtable is a no-code software platform that lets companies build custom apps, databases, and workflows without writing code. It blends the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the structure of a relational database, and more than 500,000 organizations use it, including a reported 80% of the Fortune 100.

For most of its life the ownership question had a clean answer: Airtable was a founder-led private company, controlled by its three founders and a syndicate of well-known venture capital firms. That has changed. In 2026, Airtable was acquired by Bending Spoons, a publicly listed Italian technology company, in an all-cash transaction. Airtable is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bending Spoons.

That makes the ownership picture straightforward today, but the road to it is the more interesting story. This article follows both states: who controlled Airtable through its independent years, and who owns it now that the sale is done.

Airtable was founded in 2012 by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas, and it is headquartered in San Francisco. Liu had earlier built a contact-management startup called Etacts that Salesforce acquired in 2011, and his time there convinced him that huge numbers of people were using spreadsheets as makeshift databases. Ofstad came from Google, where he worked on the Google Maps redesign, and Nicholas came from Stack Overflow as an engineer. The three set out to give non-programmers a tool with the power of a database and the friendliness of a spreadsheet.

The product spent years as a flexible spreadsheet-database hybrid before repositioning around software creation. Airtable now markets itself as a platform for building apps and, increasingly, AI-powered workflows. In June 2025, Liu announced a "refounding" of the company to become AI-native, and Airtable launched new products including Omni, an AI app-building assistant, and its first standalone product in more than a decade, an agent product it released in early 2026.

The company does not disclose full financial statements, but its revenue scale became public through the acquisition. Airtable reached roughly $480 million in annual recurring revenue by mid-2026, growing more than 20% year over year. That figure, and the roughly $965 million in net cash on its balance sheet, are what underpinned the $2.25 billion equity value in the sale. Sizing a software business against its revenue is exactly the kind of exercise a business valuation calculator is built for.

Airtable is no longer independent. Its legal entity is Formagrid, Inc., and its shares never traded on a public market. For most of its history, ownership sat with its founders, employees who held equity, and the venture capital and growth investors who funded it across seven rounds. In 2026, all of that ownership was bought out.

Airtable was acquired by Bending Spoons, a Milan-based technology company that listed on Nasdaq in July 2026. The transaction was all cash, valued Airtable's equity at about $2.25 billion, and carried an enterprise value of roughly $1.285 billion once Airtable's net cash was subtracted. With the deal complete, Bending Spoons owns 100% of Airtable, and the founders and venture investors who owned it are no longer shareholders.

Airtable never disclosed exact founder ownership percentages, and as a private company it was not required to. What is known is that Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas founded the company together in 2012 and that Liu led it as CEO through the sale. Founders of venture-backed companies typically see their stakes diluted with each funding round, and Airtable raised money through Series F, so the three founders collectively owned a smaller share by the end than they did at the start.

Even so, founder-led control defined Airtable's decision-making for its entire independent life. Liu drove the 2025 pivot to an AI-native strategy and, by his own account, negotiated the Bending Spoons deal as a way to fund that vision with a long-term owner. Because it was an all-cash sale, the founders and every other shareholder were paid out for their stakes rather than rolling them into a new public stock, so the transaction converted founder equity into cash rather than continuing ownership.

Airtable raised approximately $1.36 billion across seven rounds. The round-by-round record shows how the valuation climbed to its 2021 peak before the 2026 sale reset it.

Thrive Capital, the firm founded by Joshua Kushner, led Airtable's Series D and returned in later rounds, making it one of the most prominent backers. Benchmark and CRV were among the earliest institutional investors, with CRV leading the Series A and staying involved through later rounds. Coatue and Greenoaks joined as growth investors, with Greenoaks leading the 2021 Series E that more than doubled the valuation to $5.77 billion.

Caffeinated Capital backed Airtable from the seed stage onward, and XN, a hedge fund founded by former Viking Global partner Gaurav Kapadia, led the $735 million Series F in December 2021. That final round also drew Salesforce Ventures, the venture arm of the company that had earlier bought Liu's first startup, along with Franklin Templeton, MSD Capital, Silver Lake, J.P. Morgan, ICONIQ, and T. Rowe Price. None of these investors held a controlling stake on its own, so control rested with the founders and the board rather than any single fund, until all of them were bought out in the 2026 sale.

Ownership now sits with a single parent. Bending Spoons is a Milan-based technology company that operates a portfolio of consumer and productivity software, including Evernote, Vimeo, Brightcove, WeTransfer, StreamYard, and Meetup, and it has acquired the AOL brand and Eventbrite among others. It went public on Nasdaq in July 2026. Its model is to buy established software businesses and run them for the long term rather than resell them, and its leadership has said it is committed to Airtable for the long run. With the acquisition complete, Bending Spoons owns 100% of Airtable, ending its run as an independent venture-backed company.

Howie Liu is the central figure in Airtable's story. He led the company as CEO from founding it in 2012, chaired its board through the independent years, and set the strategy that produced both the 2025 AI-native "refounding" and the 2026 sale. He negotiated the transaction and remains the executive most associated with Airtable's direction. Reports indicate he took a seat on Bending Spoons' board after the deal completed, giving him a continuing role in the combined company, though Bending Spoons has not detailed his post-close operating position.

Andrew Ofstad and Emmett Nicholas co-founded Airtable alongside Liu and held senior leadership roles across product and engineering. As founding shareholders, they were part of the ownership group paid out in the all-cash sale. Their individual stakes were never publicly disclosed.

As a private company, Airtable's board included its founders and representatives of major investors such as Thrive Capital, Benchmark, and CRV, reflecting the standard venture governance model where large backers hold board seats. That board approved the Bending Spoons agreement. With the transaction complete, control has shifted entirely to Bending Spoons, and the venture-era board structure has ended.

The most consequential development in Airtable's ownership story is how far its price fell. The company was valued at $11.7 billion in December 2021, near the peak of the software funding boom, on a revenue multiple that ran into the dozens. By 2026, with growth slower and software multiples compressed across the market, the Bending Spoons deal valued Airtable's equity at about $2.25 billion, and its operating business at an enterprise value near $1.285 billion. That is roughly 2.7 times its annual recurring revenue, a fraction of the multiple its 2021 backers paid. Investors who bought into the Series E and Series F at high valuations were the most exposed to that repricing.

For years, observers expected Airtable to attempt an initial public offering, the path most large venture-backed software companies aim for. Instead, the company sold itself to a strategic owner. That choice traded the upside and volatility of the public markets for a certain cash outcome and long-term backing. It also ended a long stretch of speculation about an Airtable IPO, and it fit a broader 2025 and 2026 pattern of once-highflying software companies being taken private or acquired rather than listing at reduced valuations.

Airtable's decision to reposition around AI was a strategic bet rather than a settled outcome. Rebuilding a no-code platform around conversational AI and autonomous agents is a significant change, and it puts Airtable in more direct competition with a wave of AI-native tools. The pivot was central to why Liu sought a long-term owner with deeper resources. Whether it restores faster growth is still unproven, and it is a business risk that the new owner now carries.

Ownership shapes Airtable's future directly now, because the company has moved from many owners to one. For its entire independent life it answered to its founders and venture backers, a group that funded years of growth and has now been cashed out. Today it answers to Bending Spoons, a single corporate parent with a stated preference for holding software businesses over the long term rather than flipping them. That shift changes who sets strategy, how patient the capital is, and what pressures the company faces.

For investors, the sale was the moment their paper stakes turned into cash. An all-cash deal pays every shareholder out at the agreed price, which rewarded early backers who bought in cheaply and disappointed those who invested at the 2021 peak. The steep gap between the $11.7 billion Series F valuation and the roughly $2.25 billion sale price is a clear example of how private valuations set in a boom can reset hard, a dynamic that has also reshaped peers like Figma and other richly valued software companies.

For the founders, the transaction converted control into a payout and, in Liu's case, a board seat at the acquirer. That is a different path from staying independent and pursuing an IPO, which some observers had expected Airtable to attempt. Selling to a strategic owner traded the upside and risk of the public markets for certainty and long-term backing, the resources Liu says the AI-native strategy needs.

For customers, the change of owner is the practical question. Bending Spoons has said it is committed to Airtable for the long run, but it also runs a large portfolio of acquired software and is known for restructuring the businesses it buys. Airtable competes with no-code and productivity platforms like Notion and design-and-collaboration tools like Canva, so how the new owner invests in the product, pricing, and AI roadmap will determine whether Airtable holds its position. The pattern echoes earlier acquisitions of independent software companies, such as Slack after it was bought by Salesforce.

Airtable is owned by Bending Spoons, a Milan-based, Nasdaq-listed technology company that acquired it in an all-cash deal in 2026. Before the sale, Airtable was a privately held company owned by its founders, employees, and venture capital investors such as Thrive Capital, Benchmark, CRV, Coatue, Greenoaks, Caffeinated Capital, XN, and Salesforce Ventures. Those shareholders were cashed out, and Bending Spoons now owns 100% of the company.

No. Airtable never held an initial public offering, and its shares do not trade on a public exchange. It is now owned by Bending Spoons, which is itself publicly listed on Nasdaq, so Airtable's business sits inside a public company rather than trading on its own.

Airtable was founded in 2012 by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas. Liu, the CEO, previously built a startup called Etacts that Salesforce bought. Ofstad came from Google, where he worked on Google Maps, and Nicholas was an engineer at Stack Overflow.

Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable and has led the company since 2012. He drove its 2025 shift to an AI-native strategy and negotiated the 2026 sale to Bending Spoons. He is reported to have joined Bending Spoons' board after the acquisition completed.

Airtable is now wholly owned by Bending Spoons, so it has a single shareholder. Before the acquisition, Airtable did not disclose exact ownership percentages, and its largest known shareholders were its three founders and its venture investors, led by Thrive Capital, Benchmark, CRV, Coatue, Greenoaks, and XN, which led the $735 million Series F. Salesforce Ventures also invested.

Airtable raised roughly $1.36 billion across seven funding rounds between 2015 and 2021. Its valuation rose from about $1.1 billion in 2018 to a peak of $11.7 billion at its December 2021 Series F. By 2026, the sale to Bending Spoons valued its equity at about $2.25 billion, a steep markdown from the peak as software valuations compressed.