Airtable just sold for 2.7x revenue.

Three days later, Harvey reportedly raised at 44x.

Bending Spoons just bought Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash.

In 2021, Airtable was valued at $11.7 billion. PitchBook calls it roughly an 80% discount.

Three days later, The Information reported Harvey is in talks to raise at $15.5 billion.

Run the math on both.

Airtable does about $480 million in ARR. 500,000 organizations use it, including 80 of the Fortune 100.

This is not a failing company. It sold for 2.7 times revenue.

Harvey does about $350 million in annualized revenue. At $15.5 billion, that's 44 times.

Same week. Same software market. One deal at 2.7x. One at 44x.

Yes, Harvey is growing MUCH faster. Growth explains part of the gap. It does not explain a 16x difference in multiple.

I'm not picking on Harvey here. I'm actually impressed with what they're building. The same is true at Legora and other legal tech SaaS companies.

Harvey's raise just happened to coincide with the Airtable sale so their data point is the most relevant.

Bankers call the Airtable deal a transaction comp.

Every buyer at the table for the next SaaS deal will point at 2.7x and say "that's the number."

Legal tech should pay close attention.

There is a vintage of legal tech unicorns carrying valuations they never grew into.

Real companies. Real revenue. Founders who might happily take a clean exit and go build in AI or join a lab.

Bending Spoons IPO'd last month at $18 billion. Its entire model is buying real businesses at deep discounts and running them for profit. Evernote. WeTransfer. Vimeo. Now Airtable.

Someone is going to run that playbook in legal tech.

How can the Harvey bet and the Airtable comp both be right about what software is worth?