Bending Spoons has agreed to acquire workplace database and spreadsheet startup Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash, marking the Italian software group's first acquisition since it went public last month. The deal fits Bending Spoons' established playbook of buying well-known tech brands at a discount to their previous private valuations, then cutting costs and streamlining operations to make them profitable, as it has previously done with Evernote, WeTransfer, Eventbrite and Vimeo.

Founded in 2013, Airtable had raised more than $1.4 billion and was valued at over $11 billion at its 2021 peak, before secondary-market trading earlier this year put it closer to $4 billion; accounting for its net cash position, Bending Spoons values the deal at roughly $2.25 billion. Airtable reported annual recurring revenue of around $480 million as of June 2026, up more than 20% year-on-year, and says it serves over 500,000 organisations, including 80% of the Fortune 100. The company has been expanding into AI with its "Superagent" platform, launched in January to let users deploy teams of AI agents for tasks.