Airtable’s whopping $11 billion valuation achieved in late 2021 has lured many aspiring entrepreneurs into the low-code database space. They crave even a fraction of the pie that the 10-year-old American juggernaut used to enjoy. SaaS has long been a proven business model in the US, emerging markets, and even the burgeoning Chinese tech industry, but many users still expect their software to be free.
Asian SaaS startups built by skilled and affordable developers to grow their paying customers are making inroads west. Hong Kong-based low-code database APITable is one of them (currently setting up a base in Canada). The company isn’t shy about its ambition to challenge Airtable. A good example of this is the company’s blog, which had a step-by-step guide on how to migrate from Airtable to its own platform (this page disappeared when it went live).
APITable competes with a handful of startups, such as Amsterdam’s Baserow and San Francisco-based NocoDB, to provide open-source visual solutions for creating smart, polished-looking databases. Its name suggests a focus on system interoperability. In the future, users will be able to use his APITable API to connect low-code tools to platforms like Zapier, Slack, Google Workspace, and most recently his ChatGPT, said the company’s co-founder and COO Gary Li said in an interview.
The software comes with a paid premium version for users who want an off-the-shelf product that requires minimal technical skills and third-party hosting. It is starred. on GitHub, an indicator of the popularity of the project among developers. Li declined to disclose the company’s revenue scale, but he expects “organizational users”, including freemium and paid users, to grow from 6,000 to more than 20,000 in 30 countries in 2022. claimed to have increased.
APITable’s founding team first tested water in China. The Chinese version of his Vika was launched in his 2019. Back then, venture capitalists, fueled by the boom in cloud-based solutions like Zoom, Stripe, Canva, Figma and Airtable in the West, were rushing to bet on local alternatives.
APITable itself was funded by prominent VCs such as IDG Capital, GL Ventures (an early-stage division of Hillhouse), and 5Y Capital. The startup had raised a total of $10 million in funding as of early 2021 at a valuation of approximately $75 million.
Back in China, Vika had no shortage of rivals. From giants like ByteDance and Tencent to underdogs like Hipacloud and Treelab, companies were clamoring to build an answer for his Airtable. Going forward, the parent company will focus more on expanding in the West through his APITable. “Being open source is a marketing method in itself, but he still relies on SaaS sales to generate revenue,” he believes.
APITable CEO Kelly Chan seems to know something about creating tools for non-technical users. He was previously his CTO at HeyTea, a venture-backed company that revolutionized the Chinese bubble tea business. The chain not only pioneered novel cheese-on-the-top flavors, but more importantly, invested heavily in a sizable development team. This is a rather unusual move in the food and beverage industry. The result was reassuring. Under Chan’s leadership, HeyTea has created an app that speeds up ordering, reduces waiting times, and increases recurring revenue through membership schemes.
