It’s been a big week for Airtable and its customizable spreadsheet platform. On top of unveiling new features designed to boost its automation, low-code and team collaboration cred, the San Francisco, Ca.-based company unveiled $185 million in series D funding.
Founded in 2012, Airtable has seen a sharp rise in during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 200,000 businesses now using its app. By combining the power of a database with the accessibility of a spreadsheet, Airtable lets users create shared apps for a variety of purposes, whether as a task management tool or a simple CRM platform. The company’s approach has proved popular and others have launched similar services; Microsoft unveiled its Lists app earlier this year and Amazon Web Service’s Honeycode offers comparable functions.
Airtable, now valued at about $2.5 billion, is one of several cloud productivity apps attracting significant funding in recent weeks, alongside Coda, Mural and others, as demand for tools to connect remote workers soars.
On Monday, Airtable unveiled major improvements to its software with the introduction of IFTTT-style automation, low-code app creation capabilities and more effective context sharing. Airtable CEO and co-founder Howie Liu talked about the new features and investment, competition with Microsoft, and why businesses are only at the beginning of digital transformation of the workplace.