Just as important as the new funding though, are the various new features the company is launching today. I’d much rather be in a position where all the investors around the table, whether they have legal say or not, are fully aligned with what we’re trying to do with this business.” That almost feels to me like the last resort where it’s already gotten to a place where things are ugly. “Because I don’t want to be in a position where it comes down to a legal right or structural debate over the future of the company. “I think actually, what’s more important in my view, is having philosophical alignment and expectations alignment with the investors,” he said. He argues, though, that more so than the legal and structural controls, being aligned with his investors is what matters most. As a founder, that likely means he is trying to keep his stake in the company high, even as Airtable continues to raise more money. Liu has always been open about the fact that he wants to build this company for the long haul - especially after he sold his last company to Salesforce at an early stage. “While we didn’t strictly need the funding, it allowed us to continue to invest aggressively into furthering our platform, vision and really executing aggressively, without having to worry about, ‘well, what happens with COVID?’ There’s a lot of uncertainty, right? And I think even today there’s still a lot of uncertainty about what the next year will bear.” “I think there’s this increasing market recognition that the space is real, and the space is very large ,” he told me. In addition, the company is also launching one of its largest feature updates today, which starts to execute on the company’s overall platform vision that goes beyond its current no-code capabilities and brings tools to the service more low-code features, as well new automation (think IFTTT for Airtable) and data management.Īs Airtable founder and CEO Howie Liu told me, a number of investors approached the company since it raised its Series C round in 2018, in part because the market clearly realized the potential size of the low-code/no-code market. Current customers include Netflix, HBO, Condé Nast Entertainment, TIME, City of Los Angeles, MIT Media Lab and IBM. With this, Airtable, which says it now has 200,000 companies using its service, has raised a total of about $350 million. Thrive Capital led the round, with additional funding by existing investors Benchmark, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital and CRV, as well as new investor D1 Capital. The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation.
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