Cloud software tech startup Airtable raises a massive $735 million Series F funding at $11 billion valuation; adds Salesforce, Michael Dell as investors
Daniel Levi
Posted On December 14, 2021
Airtable, a cloud-based software tech startup that offers an online platform for creating and sharing relational databases, has raised a massive $735 million Series F funding round that nearly doubles its valuation to $11 billion from a year ago. AirTable joined the highly coveted unicorn club back in 2019.
The round was led by New York City-based XN, with participation from new investors including Franklin Templeton, Salesforce Ventures, and Michael Dell’s MSD Capital, among others. Existing investors including Benchmark, Coatue, D1 Capital Partners, and Thrive Capital also participated in the round.
Founded in 2013 by CEO Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas, the San Francisco-based Airtable offers an easy-to-use online platform for creating and sharing relational databases. Airtable helps create flexible checklists, organize collections or ideas, and manage customers or contacts as well as offers a variety of templates ranging from home improvement to store inventory, enabling users to build custom applications without any prior coding experience.
AirTable is Howie Liu’s second startup. He sold his first enterprise software company, Etacts, to Salesforce in 2011. Liu said his mission is to make the complex world of software more user-friendly. Low-code and no-code software were not that accessible to users before AirTable came into the scene. AirTable has now leveled the playing field by making it possible for anyone with no coding background to create and build apps and workflows.
“This round really gives us financial freedom as a company. We’re going to be able to go and execute on the long-term opportunity of the space,” Liu said on CNBC’s “TechCheck.”
“This bridges us to profitability and allows us to time an IPO at the time that’s ideal for us as a company,” he said.
Today, Airtable cloud software is used by Netflix and Shopify, as well as more than 300,000 companies, including a good portion of the Fortune 500.
“We think this is a huge category. Almost every single knowledge worker could be a customer of Airtable in the future,” Liu said. “We’re seeing a lot of expansion from our existing accounts … We think we have a really strong story about how we can win this space.”
