Summary

  • Bending Spoons acquired all Airtable shares in cash. The announced US$1.285 billion enterprise value and approximately US$2.25 billion equity value are not competing prices; they use different boundaries.
  • Subtracting the rounded figures implies about US$965 million of Airtable net cash at announcement. It does not prove the cash balance at closing or the buyer’s final cash payment.
  • The buyer had cash, IPO proceeds and borrowing capacity, but none of the filed exhibits assigns a specific source to the Airtable purchase. Its August outlook explicitly excludes Airtable.

One acquisition, two valuation perimeters

The transaction changed state on 4 September. Bending Spoons said it had acquired 100% of Formagrid Inc., the owner and operator of Airtable, in an all-cash transaction. That closes the corporate-action question. It does not make every number used at announcement interchangeable.

The 4 August release valued Airtable at US$1.285 billion on an enterprise-value basis. It then said Airtable’s current net cash and cash equivalents implied an equity value of approximately US$2.25 billion. Enterprise value treats surplus cash as something acquired alongside the operating business; equity value measures what belongs to shareholders after the balance-sheet position is included. With a net-cash target, equity value can exceed enterprise value.

The simple bridge is US$2.25 billion minus US$1.285 billion, or about US$965 million. Both inputs are rounded, and the release does not publish the underlying cash and debt schedule. The difference is therefore an implied announcement-date quantity, not an audited Airtable balance. Nor does the completion release say whether working capital, debt-like items, fees or other closing adjustments changed the final amount.

Calling US$1.285 billion “the cash paid” would discard that boundary. Calling US$2.25 billion “enterprise value” would move the net cash to the wrong side of the equation. The completed transaction confirms the form—cash for all shares—but the purchase-accounting receipt is still missing.

ARR supplies scale, not purchase accounting

Bending Spoons also reported Airtable annual recurring revenue of approximately US$480 million as of June, growing more than 20% year on year. That provides operating scale. It is not GAAP revenue, profit, cash flow or a contractual backlog balance.

Using rounded disclosed values produces about 2.68 times ARR for enterprise value and 4.69 times ARR for equity value. The gap between those ratios does not describe a different operating asset; it comes from using a numerator that excludes net cash and one that includes it. Neither ratio was presented by the company as a valuation multiple, and neither predicts Airtable’s contribution after closing.

This distinction matters because a cash-rich target can make the shareholder cheque look unusually large beside enterprise value. Some of the value transferred is ownership of cash already inside the acquired company. That is not a discount and not free financing. How much cash was actually acquired, and how it was treated in the closing accounts, requires the next filing.

Financing capacity is not a sources-and-uses bridge

Bending Spoons entered the period with several visible pools of capital. At 30 June it reported US$793 million of cash, US$4.88 billion of long-term debt and US$4.09 billion of net debt. It also had US$1.28 billion of undrawn revolving capacity within facilities of up to US$1.58 billion.

After quarter-end, its initial public offering produced US$1.10 billion of net proceeds for the company. It added or expanded euro term facilities by €590 million and increased euro revolvers by €30 million. The financial statements separately identify a €500 million SACE-backed facility available for general corporate purposes and acquisitions, and say total revolver capacity reached US$1.87 billion by 12 August.

Those figures show resources, dates and contractual ceilings. They do not say which dollars or euros paid Airtable shareholders. Undrawn capacity is not cash already received; quarter-end cash is not a balance frozen until September; IPO proceeds are not transaction-specific merely because they arrived before closing. The filings reviewed here provide no Airtable sources-and-uses table.

The same time discipline applies to leverage. The reported 2.4 times ratio belongs to 30 June. Its denominator uses adjusted EBITDA on a pro forma basis for acquired businesses and incorporates achieved and expected cost savings subject to assumptions. It is neither a post-Airtable leverage ratio nor an independent receipt for the financing of this acquisition.

The August outlook still stops at 12 August

The 13 August outlook forecast third-quarter revenue of US$733 million to US$745 million and adjusted operating income of US$380 million to US$400 million. Full-year ranges were US$2.78 billion to US$2.82 billion of revenue and US$1.46 billion to US$1.51 billion of adjusted operating income.

Those ranges cover only businesses owned by 12 August. The completion release is explicit that Airtable was excluded and will be incorporated when Bending Spoons next reports. The acquisition may have closed during the third quarter, but calendar overlap does not silently rewrite a published forecast.

That boundary is especially important for an acquisition-led group. Bending Spoons’ second-quarter revenue rose 126%, primarily because of acquisitions, while organic growth was 3%. A new portfolio company can alter consolidated revenue, amortisation, transaction costs and adjusted measures at different times. The first inclusive outlook must identify its own perimeter.

The next receipt will replace the approximation

Earlier acquisition notes show the kind of evidence still needed for Airtable: cash consideration, cash acquired, other assets and liabilities, provisional goodwill and intangible assets, transaction costs and post-acquisition operating contribution. None of those Airtable-specific amounts appears in the four filed exhibits reviewed here.

Until that table arrives, the sound reading is narrow. Bending Spoons completed an all-cash purchase of all Airtable shares. The announced enterprise and equity values differ because the latter includes then-current net cash. Available financing existed, but its use is undisclosed. Published guidance remains on the pre-Airtable perimeter.

Sources

  1. Bending Spoons agreement announcement
  2. Bending Spoons Q2 2026 results and outlook
  3. Bending Spoons Q2 2026 financial statements
  4. Bending Spoons Airtable completion release