SaaS Apocalypse takes turn for the worse: Late SaaS Founders Face Severe Re-rating Thanks to Airtable + Bending Spoons - Todd Olson @ Pendo Chimes in.
Just when you thought the SaaS-Ageddon/SaaS Apocalypse couldn't get worse...
Editorial note: This article is a continuing series we have around the post-AI challenges pre-AI companies are facing. If you want to catch up on the series, here’s the previous articles in this series:
2/10/26 - The Tweener Founder Bat Phone is Ringing off the Hook here.
4/30/26 - Competitive Moats in the AI Era (from RDSW) here.
5/9/26 - The Hardest Thing for Early Stage NC Startups - Finding the Elusive ‘Lead’ Investor here.
5/25/26 - SaaS Apocalypse: Jes Lipson Shares His Thoughts on how SaaS founders can navigate the chaos in the SaaS market here.
Also referenced in this piece is Todd Olson, CEO of Pendo, you can find his Tweener Talks podcast interview here.
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What Happened?
If you missed, it, there’s a ton of great coverage and I strongly suggest regardless of when you’re company was founded you dig deep into this one. To Recap:
Airtable was founded in 2012 - so 14yrs old.
Airtable raised $1.36B over those 14yrs.
Airtable last raised capital in 2021: $735m at a at a $11.7B valuation
Airtable’s revenue is $480m ARR
Airtable’s growth rate is 20% y/y
8/4/26 - Newly public company, Bending Spoons, announced they are acquiring Airtable for $1.28b cash at a value of $2.25B - at the time of the deal Airtable had about $1B in cash
While nobody but Airtable and their investors know the exact capitalization table, when a company’s acquisition price is near/above that raised, this tends to end badly for common shareholders - founders and employees.
Implications of the Deal
That’s a stunning 80% discount from the 2021 valuation. Most importantly:
Airtable Revenue Multiple: $1.25B Enterprise Value / $400m ARR = 2.7X
Putting SaaS Valuations in Context
According to SaaS Capital’s public company SaaS valuation tracker:
SaaS valuations peaked at 16.9x in Q3 of 2021 and are now at 3.8x. Private fast growing SaaS founders have had to change their expectations from 10-15X to 8-10x in 23/24 and now have gotten their head’s around 6-8x.
This re-rating of SaaS companies has been a tough period. 2.7x is another leg down, should it work it’s way into private markets.
Checking in on Pendo.
The one company in NC that checks the boxes of:
Unicorn scale
Pendo raised $150m in July 2021 (peak valuation zone)
Cumulative funding of $467m
Statement from Todd Olson, Pendo’s CEO and co-founder:
The Bending Spoons + Airtable news shouldn't surprise any SaaS founder who's been paying attention. Transforming a large, established SaaS business for an AI- and agent-forward economy is genuinely hard. We're seeing that play out in real time — Bending Spoons/Airtable, Salesforce's acquisition of Fin, and others.
Every founder/leadership team has to decide their own path through this. But the window for indecision is closing. Whatever direction you choose, you have to be fully committed to it.
The Missing (and Most Important) Variable: Growth
Todd’s statement leaves a lot of room for interpretation. My interpretation goes back to our interview with Jes Lipson on how SaaS founders can navigate the AI the SaaS chaos. If you recall, he recommended embracing AI. He also theorizes that those companies that embrace AI will accelerate their growth rate and AI-driven ARR growth acceleration is what will be needed to beak out of the SaaS valuation collapse.
Bringing that back to Todd’s statement, I believe he’s saying that Pendo has made their bet on AI and Agentic, have you made yours?
Conclusion
The singular action every SaaS founder can take right now is to focus your company 100% on accelerating growth. Airtable is a cautionary tale, slow your growth to sub 25% and your valuation collapses.
To re-iterate Todd’s advice: “the window for indecision is closing. Whatever direction you choose, you have to be fully committed to it.”.
Do you know your direction? Are you fully committed to it?