Two of the best-known SaaS companies of the 2021 boom sold to the same buyer within five weeks. Bending Spoons agreed to buy Airtable in August at about 2.7 times ARR and Miro in September at about 2.3 times. Airtable had been valued at $11.7 billion at its 2021 peak, and TechCrunch put Miro's price about 90 percent below its 2022 valuation.
Most of the coverage stopped at the markdown. Jason Lemkin at SaaStr went further, in a sharp piece arguing that getting cash flow positive isn't magical, because the cash both companies accumulated earned the worst multiple in the deal.
I read deals like these from the startup CFO's chair, where the question is always the same: what does this mean for the founder on the other side of the table? Here is what the math says.
The two deals, side by side
| Airtable | Miro | |
|---|---|---|
| Announced | August 2026 | September 2026 |
| Enterprise value | $1.285B | $1.355B |
| Implied equity value | About $2.25B | About $1.79B |
| Gap between the two | About $965M | About $435M |
| ARR | About $480M, growing 20%+ | About $600M |
| Enterprise value to ARR | About 2.7x | About 2.3x |
| Capital raised | About $1.4B | About $476M |
| Consideration | All cash | All cash, with $295M of shareholder proceeds reinvested in Bending Spoons stock |
Enterprise values, equity values, ARR, and deal structure come from Bending Spoons' announcements. Capital raised comes from SaaStr's reporting.
Lesson 1: Know which number is the price
On the day the Airtable deal was announced, Bloomberg reported it at $2.3 billion. TechCrunch reported it at $1.28 billion. Both were right.
Bloomberg used equity value, which is what shareholders receive. TechCrunch used enterprise value, which is what the buyer pays for the operating business. The difference is mostly net cash: a buyer pays dollar for dollar for the cash in your bank account, then puts a multiple on the business itself.
For a founder, this matters the moment an offer arrives. Buyers negotiate on enterprise value, because that is the number their model values. Anchor on the equity figure, which includes cash you already own, and an offer will look better than it is. Separate the two before you respond, and compare enterprise value to ARR.
Lesson 2: Cash earns 1x. ARR earns the multiple
This is Lemkin's central point, and the numbers make it hard to argue with. Airtable's gap between equity value and enterprise value, about $965 million, was roughly 43 percent of its equity value. Miro's, about $435 million, was roughly 24 percent. As Lemkin puts it: "Cash is worth 1.0x. Airtable's ARR was worth 2.7x."
A CFO would push the point one step further, into a test you can run on your own numbers. Spending cash to grow creates value only if each dollar of new ARR costs less than the market will pay for it. At an exit multiple of 2.7x ARR, a company that buys new ARR at a burn multiple of 2.0x creates about 70 cents of value for every dollar of ARR it adds. A company that buys it at 3.5x destroys value compared with simply keeping the cash.
So the question Airtable's balance sheet raises is not whether the cash should have been spent. It is whether there was a way to spend it below 2.7x. At a 20 percent growth rate, nobody could be sure, and that uncertainty is exactly why cash piles up. The lesson for founders is to ask the question explicitly, every year, rather than letting the balance sheet answer it by default.
Lesson 3: Cash flow positive buys time, not a price
Both companies did the hard work of reaching profitability. Airtable got there after two rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023, and Lemkin reports Miro has been profitable since 2020. That discipline mattered. In Lemkin's words, Airtable "had no forcing function" to sell, so it could choose its moment.
What profitability did not do was lift the multiple. Both deals cleared between 2.3x and 2.7x ARR, because at 20 percent growth or less, buyers price a SaaS business on the cash it can generate rather than on what it might become. Lemkin notes that growth-stage capital is going almost entirely to AI-native companies growing 100 percent or more, and that "a 20% grower can't count on a next round."
Reaching positive cash flow gives you control over timing. Treat growth rate, not profitability, as the variable that sets your price. A company growing 40 percent and burning efficiently will usually be valued very differently from one growing 20 percent with a pristine balance sheet.
Lesson 4: Your last round's valuation is not an exit price
Airtable raised about $1.4 billion and was valued at $11.7 billion at its 2021 peak. It sold for an equity value of about $2.25 billion, roughly 1.6 times the capital it raised. Miro's price was about 90 percent below its 2022 valuation.
A private round price is negotiated by investors betting on a future exit much larger than today. An acquisition price is set by a buyer who has to earn a return on what they pay, from the business as it exists. When the two diverge, the acquisition price is the one that gets paid. If your last valuation was set in a different market, your plan, your hiring, and your own expectations should assume the market that exists now. We cover how each number gets set in how startups are valued.
Lesson 5: Read the preference stack before the headline
A $2.25 billion equity value does not mean shareholders split $2.25 billion in proportion to what they own. Liquidation preferences come first.
SaaStr's review of the Airtable deal, drawing on analysis of the filing, found that roughly $1.29 billion went off the top to preferred holders owning about a quarter of the shares, with the most recent investors recovering their money at par. That left roughly $900 million to $1 billion for all common shareholders, the group that includes founders and most employees.
That is still a very large outcome. The lesson is the shape, not the size. The more capital you raise at high valuations, the more of any modest exit is spoken for before common stock sees anything, which is the same arithmetic I walked through in the startup funding models piece. Model your own waterfall at two, three, and five times ARR before the first acquisition conversation, not after it.
Lesson 6: All cash is not always all cash
Both deals were announced as all cash. In Miro's, certain shareholders agreed to invest $295 million of their proceeds in newly issued Bending Spoons equity. For those holders, part of the payout is exposure to the buyer's stock rather than money in the bank.
Rollovers, earnouts, escrows, and holdbacks all change what an offer is worth to you, and when you receive it. Before comparing two offers, restate each one as cash at close, cash later with conditions attached, and stock, then discount the second and third for their risk. A slightly lower offer with more cash at close is often the better deal. The exit planning guide covers the structures in more detail.
Lesson 7: Who buys you shapes what comes next
Lemkin points out that the strategic acquirers you might expect for products like these, companies such as Salesforce, Microsoft, and Atlassian, did not emerge as buyers. Bending Spoons, whose portfolio includes Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, Eventbrite, and AOL, buys established products and runs them for cash flow, and SaaStr documents deep staff reductions after several of its earlier acquisitions.
That is a legitimate model, and for many investors a welcome source of liquidity. For founders it is a reminder that the buyers available to a slower-growing company price on cash flow and plan to operate accordingly. If you care what happens to your team and product after a sale, the time to shape your buyer universe is years before the process, through growth rate and strategic relevance, not in the final round of bids.
What to do with this now
- Model offers at enterprise value. Keep net cash separate and compare enterprise value to ARR.
- Know your stack. Build the liquidation waterfall and see what common receives at several prices.
- Decide what your cash is for. Hold enough to stay in control of timing, and test every dollar beyond that against your burn multiple and a realistic exit multiple.
- Watch growth rate above all. It moves your multiple more than any other metric you control.
- Restate every offer as cash at close. Rollovers, earnouts, and escrows are worth less than they look.
This is the analysis we build with founders well before an exit conversation starts, while there is still time to change the numbers that set the price. If you are heading toward one, talk to us.
Sources and attribution
- Bending Spoons, agreement to acquire Airtable: enterprise value, implied equity value, ARR, and all-cash terms
- Bending Spoons, agreement to acquire Miro: enterprise value, net cash, implied equity value, ARR, and the $295 million reinvestment
- Jason Lemkin, SaaStr, One Thing Miro + Airtable Show: Getting Cash Flow Positive Isn't Magical (September 10, 2026): cash as a share of equity value, capital raised, profitability history, buyer landscape, and quoted passages
- Jason Lemkin, SaaStr, Airtable Just Sold for $2.25B at 2.7x ARR (August 4, 2026): peak valuation and the split between preferred and common holders
- TechCrunch, Bending Spoons to buy Miro for $1.36B and Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.28B; Bloomberg, Bending Spoons to Buy Software Firm Airtable for $2.3 Billion
- The burn multiple test and the founder lessons are the author's own analysis.
