The news
Bending Spoons (BSP) completed its purchase of Airtable on September 4 and agreed to buy Miro on September 10, in deals worth about $2.6 billion in combined enterprise value. The SaaS consolidation wave is handing customers new owners with different priorities.
Both deals came at steep discounts. Airtable's equity value of about $2.25 billion is roughly 80% below the $11 billion valuation from its December 2021 funding round, Reworked reported; its enterprise value was $1.285 billion. Miro's $1.355 billion enterprise value is roughly 92% below the $17.5 billion valuation from its $400 million funding round, according to TechCrunch. Neither company was failing: Airtable's annual recurring revenue was about $480 million as of June and growing more than 20% a year, according to Bending Spoons' August 4 deal announcement, and Bending Spoons put Miro's at around $600 million.
Other buyers are active too. Superhuman bought AI notetaker Fathom, TechCrunch reported on September 14; Superhuman says the meeting data will let its AI draft emails and start follow-up work. On September 24, Databricks bought spreadsheet startup Row Zero, and chief executive Ali Ghodsi told TechCrunch the company intends to make many more acquisitions like it. TechCrunch listed four earlier Databricks purchases in 2026.
The exits reflect a hard market. Crunchbase News reported on September 16 that enterprise software was nearly absent from 2026's venture-backed IPOs, while SpaceX accounted for 83% of proceeds. Public horizontal software companies traded at a median enterprise value of 2.1 to 2.2 times forward revenue in late September, according to Multiples.vc. For companies that raised money at 2021 prices, a sale at a discount or a shutdown is often the realistic outcome. Equity management startup Pulley said on September 15 it will close on December 8.
What happens after a sale varies by buyer. Bending Spoons says it buys businesses to run for the long term, and Miro's chief executive noted it has never sold a material acquisition. But it cut about 75% of WeTransfer's staff weeks after its 2024 purchase, and customers of Harvest, the time-tracking tool it bought in July 2025, reported renewals up as much as 1,500% after a move from flat seat pricing to seats plus usage fees.
The numbers
- Airtable enterprise value
- $1.285 billion
- Airtable equity value
- About $2.25 billion
- Miro enterprise value
- $1.355 billion
- Airtable Dec. 2021 valuation
- $11 billion
- Miro funding-round valuation
- $17.5 billion
- Median horizontal SaaS forward EV/revenue (late Sept)
- 2.1x-2.2x
- SpaceX share of 2026 VC-backed tech IPO proceeds
- 83%
Why CEOs should care
Procurement and legal teams should treat change of control as a standard risk, not an edge case. For every system that holds critical data or runs core workflows, the contract should include a right to terminate without penalty after an acquisition, a cap on renewal price increases for a set number of years, and a requirement to give advance written notice of material changes to features, pricing units or support. Plan packaging deserves attention too: a new owner can keep list prices flat while moving features into higher tiers.
CIOs should plan exits before they need them. Require data export in documented, open formats, test it once a year, and write in paid transition assistance for a defined period after termination. Pulley's customers got about twelve weeks' notice and one assisted route, through a rival. Keep a short list of alternatives for each critical tool and a rough migration estimate, which is also the strongest bargaining chip at renewal.
CFOs should review vendor exposure the way they review credit exposure. Flag vendors that are venture-backed, last raised at high valuations and are growing slowly; they are the likeliest to be sold or shut. When a sale is announced but not closed, as with Miro until the fourth quarter, weigh locking in multi-year pricing against the risk of prepaying a vendor whose product may change.
The bigger picture
A new class of software owner is forming, one that buys mature products at two to three times revenue and runs them for cash. For customers, that can mean stable products and lower investment, or sharp price and staffing changes, depending on the buyer. Platform companies such as Databricks are buying for a different reason: to pull tools into their AI agents. Either way, the vendor a company signed with is not always the vendor it renews with.
What’s next
Miro's deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, and Bending Spoons' next results will be its first to include Airtable. Watch for post-close pricing, packaging and staffing announcements at both companies, and for more take-private and roll-up deals as 2026 budgets close. Buyers renewing before year-end should add the protections above while they still have leverage.
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