Airtable announced some big news on Monday.
Founded in 2012, Airtable has become a go-to place for work teams that want to collaborate without having to do too much technological heavy lifting. Its no-code platform allows users to manage workflows and share information efficiently, without having to do a lot of coding on the back-end.
Now, with a suite of new features and $185 million of fresh funding in its coffers, the popular workplace tool is transforming itself to allow teams to do more, even while working remotely.
Its first new offering is Airtable Apps, a “low-code” tool that allows users to build their own apps using simple JavaScript coding.
“Even hobbyist developers can piece together their own apps from over a million open-source JavaScript modules,” CEO Howie Liu said in a recent blog post. “And since apps are fully integrated with Airtable and your existing information, we can take care of most of the complexity that comes with building something from scratch. It’s much faster to get started, and you only have to complete the specific functionality that solves your problem.”
Users can then share these new apps or find other people’s creations on Marketplace. The site features apps that do everything from translate text to annotate images in Airtable.
Airtable is also offering a new Automations tool, making it easier for teams to automate certain workflows and reduce the number of repetitive tasks. Plus, in the interest of maintaining a collaborative work environment even in the midst of an increasingly remote workforce, Airtable has also created the Airtable Sync tool. This lets disparate teams both in and outside a company share specific data with each other more effectively, all while restricting sensitive information.
All of these features are available to Airtable users starting Monday and Liu says more will be announced soon.
This latest funding round was led by Thrive Capital and brings Airtable’s total funding raised to more than $350 million and total valuation to more than $2.5 billion. Liu told Fast Company that, despite the company’s rapid success, an IPO is not in the cards anytime soon, saying the company has lots of “furious innovation and execution over the coming years” before it goes public.
In the meantime, Airtable is hiring, with more than 30 open positions across various departments in its offices in San Francisco, NYC and Mountain View, as well as its new customer engagement center in Austin that was revealed in March.
“Austin is the perfect place for us to build out our customer engagement center, due to the wide range of talent based here. It’s also important that we have a team here because we have a number of large enterprise customers based in the city, as well as a growing customer base of small businesses and startups that are using Airtable to punch above their weight,” Brian Hagen, the Austin office’s general manager, said in a statement provided to Built In. “Additionally, Austin is one of the epicenters of innovation and creativity in the U.S., and Airtable is being used heavily by the arts, music and entertainment industry, so that’s another important reason for us to have a presence here.”
