Software Startup Airtable Scores a $11.7 Billion Valuation

(Bloomberg) — Collaboration software startup Airtable has raised new funding at an $11.7 billion valuation, making it part of a rarefied club of companies to reach decacorn status — a more than $10 billion valuation.

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Airtable raised $735 million in the funding round, the company plans to announce Monday, and will use the cash infusion to improve its workplace application platform and expand to Europe.

“This round bridges us to profitability,” Airtable Chief Executive Officer Howie Liu told Bloomberg. Liu said the company plans to go public in “a couple years.”

The latest funds will bolster Airtable’s back-end infrastructure, increase integrations with services like Salesforce.com Inc. and allow the company to open its first non-U.S. office in London, Liu said. Airtable’s tools allow finance, marketing and other non-technical workers to easily build their own apps.

New York-based hedge fund XN led the financing, which Liu said came together quickly. Existing investors agreed to participate in roughly two weeks.

Similar to Dropbox, Slack and other workplace tools, Airtable offers a basic free version and generates revenue from subscriptions for more advanced tools and services. More than 30% of Airtable’s active users currently pay, and the company’s annual recurring revenue is north of $100 million, Liu said.

Like many workplace productivity tool companies, Airtable has seen demand surge during the pandemic and now counts more than 300,000 active customers including International Business Machines Corp., Hulu and Netflix Inc. About 80% of companies in the Fortune 100 are paying customers, Liu said.

Airtable’s valuation has climbed quickly. Investors put $270 million into the company in March at a $5.8 billion valuation. Tech site the Information previously reported some details of the funding round.