Airtable, a spreadsheet startup, ended a funding round with a new valuation of $2.5 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Thrive Capital led the $185 million round, while existing investors Benchmark and Coatue Management, among others, also participated. The effect was to more than double Airtable’s $1.1 billion value from 2018, Bloomberg reported.
Airtable, competing with Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, offers an alternative user-friendly way to keep track of funding, despite its lack of some functionality that its rivals have. The company will use the new funding to make it easier for people with no technological background to build productivity tools, Bloomberg reported.
Max Gazor, a board member at Airtable and general partner at venture capital firm CRV, told Bloomberg, “You can build 99 percent of your application without writing code.”
Airtable is another business that has seen a spike in activity since working from home became the order of the day due to the pandemic.
Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO, called his company a part of a “second wave” that would move companies beyond communication apps like Zoom and Slack, and into more advanced tech to add productivity, according to Bloomberg. He said the company would likely not be sold anytime soon.
“We’ve been absolutely uninterested in acquisitions,” he said, according to Bloomberg, adding he is confident that there is “easily a $100 billion” valuation the company could reach.
Hjalmar Gislason, GRID founder and CEO, told PYMNTS that the endurance of the spreadsheet — in spite of many grievances with the form — comes from its flexibility and ease of use. He said the functions of the legacy spreadsheet make it very convenient to use for anyone who needs to do something they don’t have purpose-built software for. That makes it preferable for many businesses over costlier, more complex solutions, he added.
