The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Product decision · 2018
Airtable raised $100M at a $1.1B valuation to make spreadsheets build apps
The spreadsheet-meets-database platform for non-coders raised a $100M Series C at a $1.1B valuation in November 2018, when 80,000 businesses used it.
Airtable
What the business is
Airtable sells a cloud platform that looks like a spreadsheet but acts like a database, letting people without coding skills organize data and assemble apps and workflows; its Blocks system pulls in data from many sources and pushes it to outputs such as marketing campaigns, bots or VR experiences.
Starting capital：$170 million raised by November 2018, including a $52M round in March 2018 and this $100M Series C led by Thrive Capital, Benchmark and Coatue Management.
How it started
Howie Liu, Emmett Nicholas and Andrew Ofstad co-founded Airtable out of their own frustration: the tools for building apps were too expensive and complicated for the many knowledge workers who do not code. Their answer was a database customized to whatever each user needs rather than a fixed model built by someone else.
What happened
Airtable grew from 30,000 customers in March 2018, when it raised $52M and launched Blocks, to 80,000 businesses by November 2018. On November 15, 2018 it closed a $100M Series C at a $1.1B valuation led by Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital, Peter Fenton's Benchmark and Philippe and Thomas Laffont's Coatue Management, with Delphine Arnault, Emily Weiss, Alexa Von Tobel and prior investors CRV and Caffeinated Capital participating. The company said it would use the money to hire and open offices outside the US.
How it ended up
The Series C closed at a $1.1B valuation, bringing Airtable's total funding to $170M, with 80,000 businesses on the platform at the time of the round; the company stayed live and used the money to hire talent and expand outside the US.
Background
Airtable was founded by Howie Liu, Emmett Nicholas and Andrew Ofstad on the observation that the tech world had plenty of tools for building apps, but they were too technical for the vast majority of knowledge workers. The founders' bet was that a database, in its most flexible form, could be customized to whatever a user needs and wrapped in an interface as familiar as a spreadsheet.
The approach worked: Airtable grew from 30,000 customers in March 2018 to 80,000 businesses by November 2018, when it closed a $100M Series C at a $1.1B valuation. The round was led by Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital, Peter Fenton's Benchmark and Coatue Management, and included Delphine Arnault, Emily Weiss and Alexa Von Tobel, bringing total funding to $170M.
Investors read the timing as a sign of an early, large market rather than crowding: DashDash in Europe and Microsoft's Excel improvements were seen as validation that spreadsheet-familiar tools for non-coders had room to grow. Airtable planned to spend the round on talent and offices outside the US, with its Blocks platform already moving data between sources and outputs like marketing campaigns, bots and VR experiences.
What has to be true
- The spreadsheet is the closest thing to a universal knowledge-worker tool, so wrapping a database in that metaphor removed the learning curve that kept non-coders out of app building.
- Flexibility was the product thesis: a database customized to each need beats forcing users into someone else's app model, which is why one platform handled projects, inventories and workflows.
- Businesses proved the wedge before the round: customers grew from 30,000 in March 2018 to 80,000 by November, giving investors evidence that demand was real and still early.
- Rivals like DashDash and Microsoft's Excel upgrades validated the opportunity, and investor Josh Kushner called Airtable the leader of a market that would become very large.
What can be applied
Hide powerful software under an interface users already know: Airtable's spreadsheet front end made a flexible database usable by 80,000 businesses that would never touch traditional app tools.
Aftermath
As of November 15, 2018, Airtable remained private with 80,000 businesses on the platform, $170M raised and a $1.1B valuation; the Series C was meant to fund hiring and offices outside the US. Blocks already let users pipe data into marketing campaigns, bots and VR experiences, and Howie Liu said the founders' vision was to democratize the value proposition of building software. The company disputed PitchBook's lower $152M valuation from its previous round eight months earlier.
Sources
- Airtable, maker of a coding platform for non-techies, raises $100M at a $1.1B valuation
- Airtable raises $100M at a $1.1B valuation — Hacker News discussion
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card