How to Invest in Airtable Stock

Published Dec 21, 2023

Investor

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Amazon, Netflix, Expedia, Shopify, Intuit, BlackRock, Spotify… not a bad list of clients.

In all, hundreds of thousands of businesses use Airtable's cloud-based platform that combines the power of a database with the interface options of a spreadsheet.

If we've learned anything from Microsoft — a $2.8 trillion juggernaut — it's that enterprise software is an excellent business to be in.

While it's not quite in that league, Airtable hit an $11 billion valuation in late 2021. By all signs, this spreadsheet startup has continued to grow quicky since then.

If you're wondering how to gain exposure, here's how to invest in Airtable in 2024.

What is Airtable?

Airtable is a cloud-based platform for creating, managing, and sharing relational databases.

While database creation and searching used to be reserved exclusively for developers and data analysts, Airtable brings the functionality of databases to anybody with a computer.

Unlike a spreadsheet, which is generally used for running calculations, databases are primarily used for storing and retrieving large amounts of information.

Additionally, databases are exceptional at storing relationships between data to find commonalities and relevant connections.

Airtable then allows you to view your data in highly customizable interfaces.

The applications are endless — you can create anything from employee directories to content calendars to product inventories to bug trackers.

Over 450,000 organizations use Airtable and the company has six offices globally.

Can you buy Airtable stock in your brokerage account?

Airtable is a private company. There is no Airtable stock symbol and you can't buy it in your traditional brokerage account.

CEO Howie Liu has hinted at an IPO but the company has not made any filings to start the process. According to Liu, Airtable will “go public once we've shown we can dominate this category.”

It's hard to say when that will be.

There hasn't been much in the form of news from the company since its series of layoffs in 2022. The primary purpose of the layoffs was a renewed focus on enterprise clients and financial accountability.

Following the layoffs, when asked if Airtable will need to turn to the public markets, Liu said, “We have more than enough runway to get to profitability and then some.”

So while an Airtable IPO might happen in 2024, the company is in no rush.

Regardless, accredited investors can buy Airtable before its IPO. Here's how.

How to invest in Airtable

The SEC allows certain types of investors, known as accredited investors, to invest in what it considers to be “riskier” assets. This includes investing in private companies.

Are you an accredited investor?

You qualify as an accredited investor if you meet one of the following criteria:

You have an annual income of $200,000 individually or $300,000 jointly

Your net worth exceeds $1,000,000 (excluding your primary residence)

If you're an accredited investor, the next chapter is for you. If you don't qualify as an accredited investor, skip ahead to the second section for a few ideas on how to gain indirect exposure to Airtable.

1. How to buy Airtable stock as an accredited investor

Shares of Airtable are being sold to accredited investors on a secondary marketplace.

Equitybee is an investment platform that gives accredited investors access to high-growth, VC-backed startups and private companies like Reddit, OpenAI, and Airtable:

Shares are currently trading for $64.63 each at a valuation of $11.73 billion, which is about the same price private equity firms paid back in December 2021.

By funding employee stock options, accredited investors can gain investment exposure to private companies at past valuations, meaning you can buy in at the same valuation as private equity firms paid at the last funding round.

In exchange for funding the options, you will receive a percentage of future proceeds from any successful liquidity events.

Hit the button below to register and view the current offerings for Airtable:

Disclaimer: Subject to availability. Investments involve risk; Equitybee Securities, member FINRA.

2. How to buy Airtable stock as a retail investor

Retail investors may not have the same investment opportunities as accredited investors, but there are a few roundabout ways to invest in Airtable.

Invest in its publicly traded investors

Airtable has raised $1.35 billion from 52 outside investors, according to Crunchbase.

The bulk of these investors are private equity firms or venture capitalists, but there are several publicly traded companies that own stakes in Airtable. By buying these companies, individual investors can gain indirect exposure to Airtable.

Salesforce (CRM) and Franklin Resources (BEN) both participated in Airtable's Series F funding round in December 2021, which raised $735 million at an $11 billion valuation.

Each of these stakes were likely less than $200 million and make up a very small amount of Salesforce's (0.08% of $247.5 billion) and Franklin Resources's (1.5% of $13 billion) market capitalizations.

Still, if Airtable were to 10x from here, Franklin's stake could have a material impact on its stock price.

Invest in Airtable's competitors

Perhaps a more appealing opportunity for retail investors is investing in Airtable's publicly traded competitors.

Asana (ASAN): Asana is a work management platform that helps organizations orchestrate daily tasks and larger projects. The company generated $631.6 million in revenue in the last 12 months and has a market capitalization of $4.2 billion.
Atlassian (TEAM): Atlassian develops enterprise software to help organizations plan, organize, track, and manage their daily work and projects. Its best-known applications are Jira, Confluence, and Trello. It generated $3.7 billion in revenue in the last year and is worth $53.2 billion.
Monday.com (MNDY): Monday offers product solutions for work management, sales CRM, and related business verticals. Its $667 million in TTM revenue has earned a valuation of $8.4 billion.
Smartsheet (SMAR): Smartsheet is primarily a record-keeping and performance-tracking dashboard software for enterprises to plan, capture, manage, automate, and report on work within the organization. Smartsheet has generated $914 million in revenue in the last 12 months and has a market cap of $5.9 billion.

Airtable's revenue

Airtable is one of the fastest companies to get from $10 million to $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). This is especially impressive considering it was one of the slowest of the companies on this list to get from $0 to $10 million ARR:

Source: Sacra.com

The hockey stick shape is mainly attributable to a shift in focus from consumers to enterprise clients.

While there's no public information about Airtable's current revenue, we can extrapolate from its previous revenue and valuations to reach an estimate.

Based on its $85 million ARR and $5.77 billion valuation in March 2021, its ARR was likely in the range of $115–140 million by December 2021 when it received funding at a valuation of $11 billion.

Based on its growth rates, I would estimate its annual revenue to be in the $200–250 million range as of the end of 2023.

Who owns Airtable?

As mentioned above, there are 52 external investors in Airtable at this time.

Notable investors include Michael Dell, Ashton Kutcher, Ron Conway, Joshua Schachter, and Jawed Karim. Firms like Tiger Global Management, Silver Lake, Thrive Capital, Greenoaks Capital Partners, Benchmark, and more have also invested.

Additionally, current CEO and co-founder Howie Liu and his co-founders Andrew Ofstad and Emmett Nicholas, along with other employees all likely own some percentage of the company.

The exact ownership breakdown is not public information.

How to buy the Airtable IPO

Liu told CNBC in 2022 that they would take Airtable public “once we've shown we can dominate the market.”

How far away the company is from that accomplishment is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the company go public in 2024 or 2025 if the IPO market heats up again.

When Airtable does go public, you'll be able to look up its stock symbol and buy it in your brokerage account. If you don't have a brokerage account, we recommend Public.

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