What is Airtable?
The AI-native app platform that lets teams build collaborative databases and intelligent workflows without code
- Category
- No-Code / Low-Code App Platform
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA
- Founded
- 2012
- Employees
- ~900 (2026)
- Total Funding
- $1.4B across 7 rounds
- Valuation
- $11.6B (Series F, Dec 2021); ~$4B secondary market 2025
What is Airtable?
Airtable is a San Francisco-based no-code/low-code platform that fuses the familiarity of a spreadsheet with the structural power of a relational database, enabling teams to build custom collaborative apps, automate workflows, and deploy AI agents — all without writing code. Founded in 2012, the company serves more than 500,000 organizations, including 80% of the Fortune 100, and has generated an estimated $478M in ARR as of 2024.
Airtable's core product is an interconnected base of tables, views (grid, kanban, calendar, gallery, Gantt), and automations that let operations, marketing, product, and engineering teams coordinate work in a single system of record. Unlike generic spreadsheet tools, Airtable enforces data types, supports relational links between tables, and exposes a robust API — making it a lightweight application layer that scales from a single-person workflow to enterprise-wide programs. The company's 500,000+ organizational customers include 80% of the Fortune 100, and its enterprise cohort has achieved 170% net dollar retention and 100% year-over-year revenue growth.
In June 2025, CEO Howie Liu announced a formal "AI-native refounding," introducing Omni (a conversational, natural-language app builder), Field Agents (automated AI workers embedded directly in base fields that can search the web, analyze documents, and generate content on each record), and Airtable for ChatGPT (launched December 2025 as a launch partner for OpenAI's business app directory). In January 2026, Airtable launched Superagent — its first standalone product in 13 years — a multi-agent research platform built on the October 2025 acquisition of DeepSky (formerly Gradient, $40M raised). Superagent dispatches a coordinating agent that plans, assigns specialist sub-agents to investigate financials, competitive positioning, and recent news in parallel, then synthesizes an interactive deliverable, powered by models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Airtable's enterprise segment has been the fastest-growing engine, with enterprise revenue growing 100% year-over-year and 170% net dollar retention. The company maintains approximately 90% gross margins, estimated $478M ARR in 2024 (27% YoY growth), and reached cash-flow positivity by late 2024, holding roughly half of its $1.4B in raised capital in reserve. CEO Howie Liu's January 2026 letter cited the $11.6B last-round valuation as the company's official benchmark, even as secondary markets priced shares closer to $4B amid broader SaaS multiple compression.
What does Airtable offer?
Airtable offers a suite of interconnected products spanning collaborative databases, no-code app building, AI agents, workflow automation, and enterprise data governance.
- Relational Database / Base· Core Platform
- No-Code App Builder (Omni)· Core Platform
- Kanban / Calendar / Gantt Views· Views & Visualization
- Grid & Gallery Views· Views & Visualization
- Automations & Scripting· Workflow Automation
- Field Agents (AI)· AI Products
- Superagent (Multi-Agent Research)· AI Products
- Airtable for ChatGPT· AI Products
- Interface Designer· App Building
- Airtable API· Developer Platform
- Sync & Integrations· Connectivity
- Enterprise Admin & SCIM· Enterprise Governance
- Reporting & Dashboards· Analytics
How does Airtable make money?
Airtable runs a per-seat SaaS model with four pricing tiers, supplemented by AI product upsells, and grows primarily through a land-and-expand motion that begins with bottom-up team adoption and converts to enterprise-wide contracts.
The four tiers as of 2026 are: Free ($0 — 1,000 records per base, limited automations, up to 5 editors); Team ($20/editor/month billed annually or $24/month billed monthly — 50,000 records per base, 25,000 automation runs/month); Business ($45/editor/month annually or $54 monthly — 125,000 records per base, 100,000 automation runs/month, expanded admin controls); and Enterprise Scale (custom pricing, typically $60+/seat/month, unlimited records, SCIM provisioning, enhanced security, dedicated success management, and custom SLAs). Only editors pay — read-only viewers are always free, which accelerates viral internal distribution without inflating seat counts. AI features (Field Agents, Omni, Superagent) are billed separately on usage-based tiers starting around $20–$200/user/month, representing a new revenue layer above base seats.
The land-and-expand flywheel is the core unit-economics driver: a marketing or ops team adopts Airtable on the Team plan, demonstrates value, and triggers an enterprise-wide rollout. Airtable's enterprise cohort achieved 170% net dollar retention — meaning existing accounts expand faster than churn removes them — and enterprise revenue grew 100% year-over-year. The company's ~90% gross margins are typical of pure-software SaaS, and the Superagent AI product opens additional usage-based revenue above the base subscription tiers.
Airtable reached approximately $478M ARR in 2024 (27% YoY growth) and became cash-flow positive by late 2024. With approximately 134 quota-carrying sales reps and ~900 total employees, revenue per employee is approximately $530K — strong for a company still investing aggressively in AI product development and infrastructure. A 25-person team on the Business plan budgets $13,500/year but often reaches $20,000–$30,000 annually once portal add-ons, AI credits, and premium support are included.
Who leads Airtable?
Airtable is led by its three co-founders alongside a seasoned C-suite recruited from OpenAI, Goldman Sachs, and enterprise SaaS companies.
- Howie LiuCo-Founder & CEO2012–presentPreviously founded Etacts (acquired by Salesforce 2010) and was a PM at Salesforce; has led Airtable for 13+ years through its AI-native refounding in 2025.
- Andrew OfstadCo-Founder & Chief Product Officer2012–presentFormer Google PM who led the Google Maps redesign; shapes Airtable's product vision and user experience strategy.
- Emmett NicholasCo-Founder2012–presentEngineering background at Microsoft and Stack Overflow; drives core technology and architecture decisions.
- David AzoseChief Technology OfficerOct 2025–presentFormerly head of engineering for ChatGPT business products at OpenAI; prior roles at DoorDash, Uber, and Microsoft. First major external technical hire at co-founder seniority level.
- Ambereen ToubassyChief Financial OfficerDec 2020–presentFormer roles at Quibi, WndrCo, and Goldman Sachs; Yale BA Economics, Stanford MBA; led the company to cash-flow positivity in late 2024.
- Brennan O'DonnellChief Revenue Officer2023–presentOversees enterprise go-to-market and the land-and-expand motion that drives 170% NDR in enterprise accounts.
- Archana AgrawalChief Marketing Officer2022–presentLeads brand, demand generation, and product marketing through Airtable's AI-native platform repositioning.
How do you contact Airtable's leadership?
Airtable's verified email format is firstname.lastname@airtable.com (confirmed by LeadIQ and ContactOut as the pattern used by ~87% of employees). Howie Liu's address has been surfaced by multiple public sources; the remaining addresses below follow the confirmed format and are not independently verified personal emails.
firstname.lastname@airtable.comHow much funding has Airtable raised?
Airtable has raised $1.4 billion in total equity funding across seven rounds, with a last-round valuation of $11.6 billion (Series F, December 2021). On secondary markets as of 2025, shares implied a valuation closer to $4 billion, reflecting broader software multiple compression since the 2021 peak.
The Seed round ($3M, February 2015, led by Freestyle and Caffeinated Capital) and Series A ($7.6M, June 2015, led by CRV) established the foundational investor syndicate. CRV and Caffeinated Capital co-led the Series B ($52M, March 2018), followed by the Series C ($100M, November 2018, led by CRV, Coatue, and Benchmark) which marked Airtable's first unicorn valuation at $1.1 billion. Thrive Capital led the Series D ($185M, September 2020) at a $2.5B valuation, and in March 2021, the angel-led Series E raised $270M at a $5.77B valuation — roughly doubling in six months on COVID-era remote work demand. The Series F (December 2021) was a blockbuster $735M round at an $11B pre-money valuation, led by XN alongside Franklin Templeton, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity, MSD Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Silver Lake, and T. Rowe Price, with existing backers Benchmark, Caffeinated Capital, Coatue, D1 Capital Partners, Greenoaks, ICONIQ Growth, and Thrive Capital all participating.
Howie Liu confirmed in his January 2026 CEO letter that approximately half of the raised capital remains in reserve — implying roughly $700M in cash — and that Airtable is generating positive cash flow. No additional equity rounds have been announced since December 2021, giving the company significant runway to pursue its AI-native strategy without near-term financing pressure. On secondary markets in 2024–2025, shares implied a valuation closer to $4B — a ~65% decline from the 2021 peak reflecting broader SaaS multiple compression, not fundamental deterioration. Liu himself acknowledged the $4B secondary figure in January 2026 while reaffirming the $11.6B last-round valuation as the official benchmark.
Airtable has no disclosed debt facility, making its $1.4B a pure-equity capital structure. This distinguishes it from fintech peers that layer warehouse lines atop equity to fund card balances; Airtable's capital funds product development, engineering headcount, and AI infrastructure — the DeepSky acquisition and CTO David Azose's hire from OpenAI being the most recent deployments of that capital.
How did Airtable get here?
From a stealth spreadsheet-database hybrid in 2012 to a $1.4B-funded AI-native app platform launching autonomous agents in 2026.
- 2012Airtable foundedHowie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas incorporate in San Francisco, spending two years in stealth building the spreadsheet-database hybrid.
- February 2015Seed round — $3MExits invite-only beta with ~20,000–30,000 early users; closes $3M Seed led by Freestyle and Caffeinated Capital, followed by $7.6M Series A led by CRV later the same year.
- November 2018Unicorn status — Series C at $1.1BRaises $100M led by CRV, Coatue, and Benchmark at a $1.1B valuation, becoming one of the first no-code unicorns globally.
- December 2021Series F — $735M at $11.6B valuationCloses the largest round in company history with XN, Franklin Templeton, Salesforce Ventures, Silver Lake, MSD Capital, and T. Rowe Price; total capital raised reaches $1.4B.
- June 2025AI-native refounding — Omni & Field AgentsCEO Howie Liu announces a formal AI-native pivot, launching Omni (conversational app builder) and Field Agents (AI workers embedded in base fields).
- October 2025DeepSky acquisition + CTO hireAcquires AI superagent startup DeepSky (formerly Gradient, $40M raised) for an undisclosed sum; simultaneously appoints David Azose (ex-OpenAI ChatGPT Business) as CTO.
- December 2025Airtable for ChatGPT launchLaunches as an OpenAI ChatGPT business app directory launch partner, available across all plan tiers including Free.
- January 27, 2026Superagent launchLaunches Superagent, Airtable's first standalone product in 13 years — a multi-agent research platform powered by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google models, available at superagent.com.
Who are Airtable's competitors?
Airtable competes across four fronts: all-in-one workspaces, spreadsheet-native tools, work management platforms, and the emerging AI-agent layer.
- NotionAll-in-one docs + databases with a stronger wiki/knowledge-base UX; simpler relational model but faster product cadence and a lower entry price ($10/user/month Team plan). Notion AI competes directly with Airtable's Omni and Field Agents.
- Monday.comWork OS focused on task and project management with polished out-of-the-box templates; stronger in structured project workflows but less flexible as a custom database or relational data layer.
- SmartsheetSpreadsheet-native enterprise work management supporting millions of rows; stronger in large dataset handling and construction/enterprise verticals, weaker in no-code app building and AI-native features.
- CodaDoc-first platform with a powerful formula engine and native integrations ('Packs'); appeals to power users needing deep logic but has a smaller enterprise footprint and less AI investment.
- ClickUpFeature-dense all-in-one platform with an aggressive free tier; competes on breadth and price but has weaker data modeling depth than Airtable and less enterprise maturity.
- AsanaPurpose-built work management with strong enterprise adoption in PMO and marketing ops; lacks Airtable's relational database core but has deeper project workflow, approvals, and reporting.
Airtable — frequently asked questions
